Chickens' Lib

by Clare Druce

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  1994: Louise van der Merwe, our good friend in South Africa, publicised the scandal of live plucking of ostriches in her country. To the UK’s credit, when MAFF’s Dr David Mauat visited South Africa to negotiate the import of ostrich meat into the UK, he witnessed live plucking, deemed the process totally unacceptable and consequently put import plans on hold.

  Dr Walter Lowe, Director of Public Veterinary Health in Pretoria, told Animal Voice (the mouthpiece of Louise’s organisation): ‘It was terrible. The ostriches went to the slaughter completely naked. We put an immediate stop to it and we try to monitor the situation now’. He added that he hoped that before long live plucking in South Africa would stop. Dr Mauat hadn’t been keen on importing meat on other scores too, including a recent outbreak of Newcastle Disease in SA, and possible residues of the drug Zerenol, a growth-promoter, in the meat (15).

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  Three years later, Louise sent us a photograph taken earlier that year in the Northern Cape. It showed two fully-grown ostriches completely denuded of feathers, oven-ready you might say, standing in their compound under a vividly blue sky. The scandal of live plucking was by no means over. Two years after the outright condemnation of the practice, scientific research, carried out at the University of the Orange Free State and sponsored by the SA Ostrich Producers Organisation and the Ostrich Breeders Association of SA, concluded that this ripping out of feathers did not stress the birds.

  Mercifully, it does seem that compassion has prevailed, and live plucking is now no longer carried out in South Africa, so presumably the dubious findings of the above research were found wanting.

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  Ostrich News, Winter 1994 (16) included an article by Clive Madeiros, a specialist ostrich vet. In it he gave the following advice about the pre-slaughter treatment of ostriches: ostriches should be penned in a lairage on the evening before slaughter, and left there overnight, in complete darkness. Ideally, the birds should be hooded, the hood left on overnight in readiness to quieten the birds on their way to slaughter. It must be said that Mr Madeiros sounded doubtful about overnight hooding; he suggested that consideration should be given to the process. Clearly, hooding is convenient, but did he perhaps share Chickens’ Lib’s concerns about those luxuriant eyelashes? How painful would it be to have them pressed against the eyes by the hood, for many hours? And why hood ostriches overnight, when darkness itself would quieten the birds?

  One can only assume the handlers want a difficult job over and done with, before the next day’s trauma of on-farm killing, or the battle of loading the bird onto a vehicle bound for the slaughterhouse.

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  A telling report appeared in Poultry World on a seminar hosted by Roland Bardsley, a hotel owner and by then ostrich farmer too. Accompanying the article are three photographs. The first one shows Clive Madeiros demonstrating how to catch an ostrich. He’s making a grab at its neck, while it flaps its wings wildly. The light-hearted caption reads: ‘First catch your ostrich! Veterinary surgeon Clive Madeiros demonstrates how a bird is taken into custody, hooded (below) and led off to the processing plant.’ Below is a photo of the ostrich, face tightly hooded, being led away by two men, both of them considerably shorter than the ostrich, apparently the vet and owner Mr Bardsley. He is pictured separately too: ‘Roland Bardsley smiles at the thought of the opportunities’ reads the caption. Opportunities, presumably, of making big money from ostriches forced to live out their grossly shortened lives far from home.

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  What did MAFF have to say about slaughter? In its August 1996 Guidance on the Slaughter of Ostriches the Ministry painted a picture of virtually unachievable conditions: ‘No avoidable excitement, pain or suffering must be caused to any animal. Anyone involved in these operations must have the knowledge and skill to perform them humanely and efficiently in accordance with the regulations. Ostriches should always be moved in a calm and unhurried manner’, and so on….MAFF mentioned the hood, but didn’t have anything to say about its overnight use.

  Although ostriches were regarded as ‘poultry’, MAFF stated that, because of their size, they should be treated as a red meat species at slaughter and electrically stunned, so as to cause immediate unconsciousness lasting until death.

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  Fast forward several years: I emailed DEFRA with a few queries about the present state of ostrich farming in the UK, and a spokesperson for its Animal Welfare Team sent me the following information, in an emailed reply dated April 29th 2010:

  DEFRA on slaughter: ‘Killing ostriches by means other than electrical stunning is legal under present legislation’. It was with relief that I later learned (though not from DEFRA) that from January 2013 EU law will prohibit ostriches from being slaughtered by neck dislocation or by decapitation, since these methods will be outlawed for any bird weighing more than 5 kg (17).

  DEFRA on slaughterhouses: ‘There is only one approved ostrich slaughterhouse in the UK.’ This means that either there’s a lot of on-farm slaughter (and who knows how botched that might be?) or ostriches must travel long distances to the approved plant, despite the species’ known vulnerability to injury during handling and transport.

  DEFRA on the number of ostrich farms: ‘According to the Great Britain Poultry Register (GBPR) there are thirty seven in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) holding 954 ostriches though the GBPR does not differentiate between ostriches in zoos and wildlife parks from those on farms.’ In view of this lumping together of things, and as MAFF had no central record of ostrich farms when they were springing up all over the UK, it’s impossible to judge quite to what extent the get-rich-quick bubble has burst. Happily, though, it appeared that entrepreneurs looking for quick and easy profits had, in the main, backed the wrong horse. Or so I thought…

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  Disturbingly, the front cover of the December 2011 issue of Poultry World featured a photo of several ostriches in the company of UK farmer Harold Paine, of Ostrichfayre. The article was headed Ostrich Farming Poised for a Comeback? Apparently, despite the boom and bust nature of the previous venture in Europe, ‘there are still those who firmly believe the true commercial potential was overlooked as people focused on making rapid profits from the sale of breeding stock’.

  On Mr Paine’s ostrich farm fifteen young ostriches to a half-acre paddock is the norm. Interestingly, he has tried allowing the parent birds to hatch out their young, recording a 90% success rate. However, he admitted that under artificial incubation: ‘Out of 100 eggs incubated, we can be lucky to get 40 chicks…’ Mr Paine describes the downside of the 90% success rate thus: ‘Nevertheless, retrieving the newly hatched chicks from the paddock and coping with the aggression of the adult birds highlights the care that needs to be taken when dealing with mature ostriches.’

  Mr Paine’s findings only serve to highlight the dedication and fiercely protective feelings of the parent birds towards their chicks, emphasising the deprivation involved in the commercial farming of ostriches.

  Turkeys again, and a cool reception

  February 1992: Irene and I were booked in for a day at the turkey industry’s national conference at the Hotel Majestic in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. As we crossed the hotel’s grandiose Victorian threshold, delegates’ tickets in hand, we were surprised to be intercepted by the conference organiser, Shirley Murdoch. Flustered and apologetic, she told us we were barred, explaining that many delegates had threatened to walk out if anyone from Chickens’ Lib was allowed in.

  Irene and I fumed. We’d paid on a Chickens’ Lib cheque, there’d been no deception on our part; and (to her credit) Ms Murdoch hadn’t objected. But once our names had been spotted on the conference programme, it seemed all hell had broken loose.

  Under the heading WELFARE PAIR SPARK THREAT OF WALKOUT the next issue of Poultry World described the ensuing drama: ‘The UK turkey industry came face to face last month at the national turkey conference with two of its bêtes noires – the French industry and the welfarists…The welfare
movement was represented by two leading members of Chickens’ Lib, Mrs Clare Druce and Mrs Irene Williams. They had not been invited, but their £80 registration fee had been accepted by conference organiser Shirley Murdoch and they were listed as delegates. The two women could not have caused more of a stir if they had applied for membership of the MCC and attempted to breach the threshold of the pavilion at Lords. On the evening before they were due to arrive at the Hotel Majestic it became apparent that as soon as they entered the conference hall a sizeable chunk of the audience would leave. “This left me with no choice,” [Ms Murdoch] said. “I explained the position to them and refunded their registration fees with something to cover their expenses. It was all very civilised.” ’

  But not entirely civilised. For quite a while Irene and I hung around on the other side of a barrier (hastily erected to keep us out?) refusing to leave, a target for scornful glances from passing turkey barons.

  Sensing an opportunity not to be missed, we explained to a harassed Ms Murdoch that we’d intended to question the Chief Ministry Vet, Keith Meldrum, a speaker at the event. Partial beak amputation, artificial insemination and slaughter methods had all been on our list of welfare problems to be raised. These were urgent matters! Since we couldn’t attend the conference, could Mr Meldrum perhaps come to us?

  Not a good idea, according to David Joll, Managing Director of Bernard Matthews Ltd and chairman of the British Turkey Federation. ‘It was not the time or place to enter into a lot of questioning of Keith Meldrum,’ he was to tell Poultry World.

  However, to our considerable surprise, Mr Meldrum got wind of our request, left the assembly and led us to a comfortable little room at a safe distance from the seething delegates. There, in quiet seclusion, we talked at some length.

  ‘In the event, however, they did get a chance to talk to Mr Meldrum,’ [admitted a rueful Poultry World]. ‘He agreed to speak to them privately and, as he told the conference later, “I spent an hour and a half with them and it was very valuable”. The chief vet went on to warn delegates that they had to accept that there was a strong body of opinion that believed the industry should do more about welfare within existing legislative framework “It is a very important issue that will not go away. You are not getting your act together.” ’ (1)

  Presumably an industry that was doing well saw no need to mend its ways, especially when contraventions of legislation were routinely ignored by the body best placed to mount prosecutions – MAFF itself. Research detailing the suffering of male breeding turkeys had been published before our talk with MAFF’s Chief Veterinary Officer, and some was ongoing. Why had this unnecessary pain and unnecessary distress (UPUD in Ministry shorthand) been allowed to continue for years, unchallenged?

  In the next chapter I’ll give a few examples of relevant research.

  Scientists prove suffering

  1987: Dr S R Duff et al. had found antitrochanteric degeneration (disease of the hip joint) to be ‘an extremely common cause of lameness in male breeding turkeys’. (1)

  Then in 1991, Dr Ian Duncan and colleagues at the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research, Roslin, conducted an experiment to assess not just the incidence of hip degeneration in male breeders, but the degree of pain felt by the crippled turkeys. (2) The birds used were of British United Turkeys’ ‘Big 6’ breeding line (3). It’s worth noting that the researchers selected only the best specimens for their project. Seventy birds were reared to the age of 52 weeks, after which twenty were chosen while ‘…all birds in poor health, immobile or with unstable hock joints, together with birds which were very nervous and difficult to handle, were removed’. These twenty of the best birds were divided randomly into two groups, one of which was treated with a steroid, to reduce pain. Those treated with the drug showed marked improvement in activity and started to display sexual arousal.

  The experiment completed, all twenty turkeys were killed and post mortem examination showed that all had extensive hip degeneration. The most striking finding from the experiment had been the inactivity in birds not treated with painkillers: they had been observed to spend more than half of their time lying down.

  Another investigation, Leg Disorders in Male Breeding Turkeys by Paul Hocking (a researcher also based at Roslin), was reported in the industry magazine Turkeys in June 1992, only a few months after our exclusion from the conference. The figure for mortality in male breeding turkeys was found to be high, ranging from 25-66% and the researchers described lameness in breeding males as a common cause of culling. By the time they go for slaughter, we learned, 75% of such birds are either lame or walk with ‘an abnormal gait’: ‘The majority show marked limb angulation and virtually all males of the largest strains are reluctant to walk. In two separate studies over 90% of males showed degenerative hip disease on post-mortem examination.’ (4)

  Why did these various proofs of routine suffering go unheeded? How has the turkey industry been allowed to get away with inflicting known and acute suffering?

  And why, despite considerable publicity, have consumers failed to pick up on the fact that virtually any meal including turkey meat is based on the flesh of birds produced via the stressful sexual manipulation of sick and deformed male birds?

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  Soon after the Harrogate fiasco, the manager of a leading international breeding company claimed, during a phone conversation with me, not to be aware of the problem of hip degeneration in his birds. The Chief Executive of another such company told me (also on the phone) that in recent weeks a MAFF survey of the farms belonging to his well-known company had been carried out. And guess what? No trace of hip problems had been found!

  Could this ‘survey’ have been the outcome of our time spent with Mr Meldrum, as outcasts in Harrogate? And could Mr Meldrum, or those concerned with processing the survey, have been fooled in some way?

  It did appear that our publicity, in the shape of posters, leaflets and relentless letter writing campaigns, might be paying off. For at last the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) was all set to investigate the turkey industry.

  FAWC, you will recall, is the independent body set up to advise government on matters relating to farmed animal welfare. Working parties for specific reports are generally made up from about one third of the Council’s members. A point worth bearing in mind is that farm visits are made by appointment, the date often arranged months in advance.

  FAWC looks at turkeys

  1992: By invitation, thirty seven bodies, ranging from industry, through companies and veterinarians to animal welfare/rights organisations, submitted their views on the turkey industry to FAWC.

  Two years later, FAWC invited six welfare organisations, including Chickens’ Lib, to a meeting in advance of the report’s publication. Such discussions with welfare organisations were always held in the afternoon, following consultation with the industry in the morning of the same day.

  During the meeting I’d sat astounded and confounded, while extraordinarily complicated mathematical principles were bandied about, understood, I guessed, by few present. Gradually though, it had dawned on me what they were about. Two or three times I tried to get the matter in hand translated into plain English and finally forced an admission. Yes, turkeys grow upwards as well as in other directions, and luckily there’s headroom in plenty in turkey units. Incredibly, the members of the turkey working party were saying that turkeys could get by with less floor space than their increase in weight might seem to warrant.

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  In 1995, six years after the start of the Chickens’ Lib turkey campaign, the Farm Animal Welfare Council issued its ‘Report on the Welfare of Turkeys’, and a shocking light it threw on the industry.

  The report was useful for the facts and figures it revealed. We’d already found out a good deal about the industry, but in some respects our worst fears were exceeded. For example:

  • Flocks of up to twenty-five thousand turkeys, kept together in one controlled environment building, were considered stan
dard, in the larger units. (1)

  • Many farms were found to be exceeding the Government’s Turkey Welfare Code’s recommendation for space per bird ‘by a substantial margin’. (2)

  • Around 90% of UK turkeys were kept intensively (3).

  • The food of the breeding stock was ‘managed’, via feed restriction, to minimise leg disorders and maximise fecundity. (4)

  • Aggression was minimised in controlled environment buildings (windowless sheds, dependent on automation) by dimming the lights to 1- 4 lux (5).

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  1-4 lux confirmed our suspicion that turkeys lived in near darkness, in an industry bid to suppress aggression. But we weren’t strong on the lux measurement front – we needed to find out more. We spotted an advertisement for a lux meter, a device for measuring light levels, which included a list of recommended ‘illuminance values’ in the work place. Here are some examples:

  Corridors, stairs etc 100–150 lux

  General office work 300–500 lux

  Fine bench work 1000–1500 lux

  Minute work 3000–5000 lux

  Anything below 100 lux wasn’t even mentioned. I remember questioning someone who understood these things, and he likened 5 lux to candlelight.

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  The anticipated ugly picture, already well publicised in Chickens’ Lib’s literature, was at least now set out in an official document. But many aspects of FAWC’s report shocked us greatly. Take this glaring example: despite existing legislation stating that no more than one third of a bird’s upper beak may be removed (6), FAWC, perhaps shocked by the degree of aggression in turkey sheds, had suggested the removal of one half, so making a more thorough job of the partial amputation. To its credit, the Tory government turned down this suggestion.