Casual brutality of chicken catching exposed

Shot at Braes Farm in Dumfriesshire, where the six-week-old birds have been confined in huge sheds, the footage reveals what terrified chickens endure, in sheds across the country, in the final moments before they are transported to slaughter.

Teams of men work methodically through the sheds, tossing the birds into plastic crates and loading them onto pallet trucks. Twelve birds are crammed – often with injuries to their legs and wings – into each container, where they will remain until they are unloaded and killed at the slaughterhouse.

Birds who are ‘in the way’ – usually because their underdeveloped legs are too weak to carry their weight – are kicked aside. In short, the birds are treated as unfeeling objects.