Tyson Foods Makes Some Progress Toward Improving Poultry Welfare

WASHINGTON—In response to the release of a new report from Tyson Foods, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation's largest animal protection organization, today commended the company for moving away from conventional manual catching of chickens.

When chickens raised for meat reach market weight at six to seven weeks old, crews manually crate the birds and load them onto slaughter-bound trucks. Catchers typically carry them inverted by a single leg, three or four birds per hand. The violent trauma of manual catching causes extreme stress and injury to the chickens, and many chickens suffer dislocated and broken hips, legs, and wings.

However, Tyson Foods, the world's largest chicken processor—slaughtering an average of 42.9 million birds in a single week—indicated in a recently released report that it now uses mechanical catching for about half the chickens it slaughters. While catching is an inherently stressful process, well-operated catching machines reduce the rates of injury sustained by the birds, thereby lessening their suffering.

In a normal production day, 5 to 15 percent of carcasses exhibit bruising of the breast, thighs, or wings, and studies have found that 40 and 90 percent of those bruises are caused by catching and crating.* With properly maintained and operated mechanical catchers, those rates of injury fall dramatically.

"While The HSUS still has many other significant welfare concerns regarding Tyson Foods and its treatment of animals, we commend the company for making progress toward catching practices that reduce the suffering of chickens," explains Miyun Park, vice president of Farm Animal Welfare for The HSUS. "We strongly encourage the company to completely phase-out manual catching of birds. Perhaps more importantly, we urge other companies within the industry to follow Tyson's lead on this issue."

The HSUS urges Tyson to address other serious welfare concerns, including genetic selection for unnaturally rapid growth, lack of environmental enrichment, and inhumane transport and slaughter.

*Griffiths GL. 1985. Ageing bruises on chicken legs. Proceedings of the 6th Australasian Poultry and Stockfeed Convention (Melbourne, Australia, pp. 269-99); McGuire AR. 2003. Improving carcass quality. Poultry, February/March, Volume 10, No. 1, pp.25-6

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The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest animal protection organization with 9.5 million members and constituents. The HSUS is a mainstream voice for animals, with active programs in companion animals and equine protection, disaster preparedness and response, wildlife and habitat protection, animals in research and farm animal welfare. The HSUS protects all animals through education, investigation, litigation, legislation, advocacy, and field work. The non-profit organization is based in Washington and has field representatives and offices across the country. On the web at www.hsus.org.