PETA India Files Court Petition Against Meat and Egg Industry’s Gruesome Killing of Unwanted Chicks

PETA India has filed a petition in the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh seeking the court’s direction to stop the poultry industry from using various haphazard and hideously cruel methods of killing male and other unwanted chicks. Chickens used for meat are bred to have fleshier upper bodies, and those used for eggs are bred to produce an unnatural number of eggs, so the egg industry considers most male chicks useless because they can’t produce eggs and aren’t the type used for meat.

The petition follows an eyewitness exposé of several hatcheries and farms in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which revealed that millions of male and other unwanted chicks are commonly ground up, drowned, burned, suffocated, crushed, and even fed to other animals while still alive by major Indian egg and meat suppliers. Soon after PETA India released the investigation, NDTV visited poultry farms in Karnal, Haryana, and found that live, unwanted chicks were discarded in open fields and left to be eaten by dogs by one facility.

The exposé revealed that unwanted chicks were tossed into large grinders while still alive, along with eggshells and dead birds. Some were drowned in bins full of water after trying desperately to escape for up to 30 minutes, while others were tossed onto fires and burned to death or crushed or suffocated to death by being dumped en masse into large drums or trucks. Workers also transported chicks to fish farms, where they tossed them into ponds to be eaten alive – and if they tried to escape, they were kicked back into the water.

India is a member country of the World Organisation for Animal Health and should at least adhere to standards laid out by it in handling unwanted chicks in ways that reduce suffering. The companies featured in the footage captured during the eyewitness investigation – and supplied to PETA India by Anonymous for Animal Rights – include Suguna Foods, SR Group, SH Group, Diamond Hatcheries, and Skylark Hatcheries.

You can help end this misery. Join us in calling on the government to protect baby chicks.