U.S. Kills 25 Million Chickens for Food Every Day

In this short documentary produced by world-renowned animal rights photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, former undercover investigator Geoff Regier takes us inside the disturbing world of factory farming, where 25 million chickens are killed for food every day–just in the United States. “We can stop this,” says Regier, “but not until we have the courage to see it and to let ourselves feel it.”

Warning: This video contains graphic content.

In the eyes of executives at the world’s biggest meat companies, slaughterhouse workers are disposable, just like the animals they process. Every year, 65.8 billion chickens live and die on factory farms. They spend their lives crowded into industrial feeding operations where they barely have enough room to flap their wings. Many suffocate and die to due overcrowding. It’s sad and sadistic, to say the absolute least, and slaughterhouse workers are not immune to the brutal conditions that the factory farming industry tries so hard to keep out of the public eye.

This three-minute short video depicts chickens being killed, hung, boiled and dismembered by the thousand. There is no doubt that the level of cruelty is highly disturbing–and yet it’s incredibly important to see because despite what most consumers are willing to admit about the horrific realities of factory farming, this is standard practice.

It’s happening today in chicken processing plants around the world and it will continue to happen to about 25,000,000 chickens in the U.S. tomorrow unless we do something about it. Please be respectful when sharing this video with others.

Jo-Anne McArthur’s Undercover: Stories from a Former Investigator documents the time Geoff Regier spent handling chickens on more than 50 farms and one processing plant for Maple Lodge Farms in Ontario, Canada. Regier was responsible for pulling live chickens from their crates, then individually hanging them upside down from a revolving line of dangling shackles. Some are thrown and kicked mercilessly. Once suspended above the conveyor belts that brought them in, the chicken nears the end of its life. Regier is the last human contact they’ll have while alive.

“You stop seeing suffering. You stop seeing individuals. Animal dying alone on the floor becomes just a mess to be cleaned up. Otherwise good people, people with families and senses of humor are doing terrible things to animals because that’s how the system is set up.”

He says he wishes people could see what he has seen. Now you can.