• Animal-rights group says industry treatment of birds is cruel, unnecessary
• Massive, avoidable destruction of animals detailed in report and online video
Igualdad Animal, the Spanish section of international animal rights organization Animal Equality, has denounced the deaths of more than 1.5 million young chicks that it says die each day in the industrial incubators used to produce chickens for meat consumption in Spain.
As part of a campaign to raise awareness of the situation, the organization has released a report on its investigation of Spanish chicken farms in Lérida, Gerona and Tarragona (Cataluña ) and in Burgos (Castilla y León). The organization says it has gathered evidence of chickens being thrown live into trash bins, killed using hammers or having their heads severed if deemed not fit for production, as well as sick birds smothering to death in containers or crushed to death in shipping cartons.
As part of the campaign to raise awareness, with the help of Spanish actress Beatriz Ros the NGO has produced a 5-minute Spanish-language video available on YouTube about the Spanish poultry industry’s incubators, called ‘Su primer día’ (‘Your First Day’).