Chickens being beaten and impaled on makeshift clubs spiked with nails, thrown into buckets to die.
Workers stepping on the heads of live chickens and yanking their bodies as a method of breaking their necks.
Those are a few examples of widespread animal abuse found at a farm contracted by Tyson Foods to raise chickens being supplied to McDonald’s Corp. for its Chicken McNuggets, a leading farm animal rights group charged on Thursday.
And within hours of the release by Los Angeles-based Mercy for Animals of graphic photos and video obtained through its recent undercover investigation, both Oakbrook-based McDonald’s and Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson quickly cut ties with T & S Farm in Dukedom, Tennessee.
“A new investigation reveals that the secret ingredient in McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets is sickening and brutal cruelty to animals,” Nick Cooney, the group’s director of education, said at a news conference at the Hyatt Regency.
“On a daily basis, the two owners of this factory farm mercilessly beat animals to death. Both McDonald’s and Tyson failed to prevent this sickening and long-standing abuse,” Cooney said before screening the footage.
The nonprofit has long waged a campaign to get major corporations to reform farm animal practices by sending in undercover operatives who get hired on the farms and record animal abuse with hidden cameras.
In this latest of dozens of such investigations, an operative was hired July 28 at the farm, which raises chickens for Tyson Foods’ slaughterhouse plant in Union City, Tennessee, and worked through Aug. 23. Footage obtained was turned over to local law enforcement/
The farm could not be reached for comment.
In a statement Thursday, McDonald’s said it did not condone the animal treatment seen in the images. “We believe treating animals with care and respect is an integral part of a responsible supply chain and find the behavior depicted in this video to be completely unacceptable,” the hamburger giant said.
“We’re committed to working with animal welfare and industry experts to inform our policies. We’re working with Tyson Foods to further investigate this situation and reinforce our expectations around animal health and welfare at the farm level,” the McDonald’s statement added.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said Thursday it had removed an estimated 125,000 of its chickens from T & S Farm.
“Members of our animal well-being team are investigating, however, based on what we currently know, we are terminating the farmer’s contract to grow chickens for us. There are currently no chickens on the farm,” Mickelson said.
“Animal well-being is a priority at our company and we will not tolerate the unacceptable animal treatment shown in this video. We’re especially concerned about the inappropriate methods used to euthanize sick and injured chickens,” Mickelson added. “[We] don’t believe this video accurately depicts the treatment of chickens by the thousands of farmers who supply us.”
