VIDEO. Gers: L214 animal protection group condemns the grinding of live puppies
Animal rights group L214 released a shocking video last night pointing the finger at “animal cruelty” at a hatchery in L’Isle-Jourdain.
Chickens are crushed alive, scattered on the ground, put in crates and packed in small rooms: this is shown in a shocking video posted overnight by the animal protection association L214. In a new survey, the latter points to the experiences of Caringa Sud-Ouest, a company specializing in hatchery activities. The company, a subsidiary of the Maïsadour group and based in L’Isle-Jourdain, has been accused by the association of animal cruelty.
Whole boxes of several hundred thousand chicks delivered to farms each day were indeed crushed. A “terrible” experience for the animal protection association, which managed to obtain footage of these processes. The latter calls for “an immediate ban on the grinding of all chickens,” regardless of sector.
Chickens are sorted, some are crushed.
For Sébastien Arsac, co-founder of L214, chicks are considered “a commodity in the same way as fruit and vegetables that are thrown away because they don’t have a good presentation”. If society is not concerned with sex-based elimination, this latter variable will still be responsible for crushing a certain proportion of these chicks.
“Chicks are born but not kept for more than 48 hours and go to farms. But when there are imbalanced arrangements between males and females, extra chicks are necessarily eliminated,” explains Sébastien Arsac.
L214 complains
The February decree, which was clarified by an order issued on November 7, regulates the methods of killing these animals. However, this applies to lines of the Gallus gallus species intended for the production of eggs for consumption. However, exemptions allow the gassing of chickens used for animal feed.
L214’s landmark hatchery is located in L’Isle-Jourdain.
For the L’Isle-Jourdain hatchery, in the meat sector, this process does not pose any legal difficulties, according to officials. But for L214, the practices are disturbing on an ethical level. The association intends to take over the Auch prosecutor’s office and file a complaint about “abandonment of animals until death”.
“Unfounded accusations”
The operator responsible for the hatchery within the company was absent Wednesday. To clarify the dispute, it is finally on the side of the National Professional Meat Poultry Association (ANVOL), on which the structure depends. With his guidance Yann Nédélec. The latter expresses his anger at such accusations, which he considers unfounded.
“It is the non-viable chicks that are euthanized,” says the director of ANVOL. This is less than one percent of the animals that leave the hatchery. In the footage released by L214, the chickens are being sorted, with some animals being removed from the crates to be placed in small boxes on either side of the workers. The chicks are then sent to a mechanical euthanizer and then to rendering.
Deformed or dying “living” chicks are crushed.
“We can’t send them for breeding, it’s a matter of animal welfare,” says Yann Nédélec, adding, “It’s not nice to see the pictures.” For the latter, the movement of the union is similar to “manipulation” aimed at serving one goal: the end of animal husbandry and the consumption of meat. For Sébastien Arsac, these images demonstrate “the absurdity and the horror of a system that throws a large part of a system that gives birth to baby birds into a machine that will pulverize them a few hours later”.
A petition to ban the grinding of chickens has been addressed to the Minister of Agriculture, Mark Fesneau.
