Maple Lodge Farms probes alleged mistreatment of chickens

Maple Lodge Farmssays it has "taken immediate steps" to investigate alleged abuse and neglect of birds at its slaughtering facility after an animal rights group released a video that seems to contain instances of animal mistreatment.

The company, one of Canada's largest chicken producers,was responding to allegationsby Mercy for Animals Canada, which said it had obtained hidden camera footage from inside the Brampton, Ont., plant.

The group claims Maple Lodge Farms allows some birds to die of cold while being transported to the plant, and subjects others to undue suffering before they're killed.

Upon the release of the video, Michael Burrows, CEO of Maple Lodge Farms, posted a video message on the company's website saying it is looking into the allegations.

"The activities shown are really disturbing to us as I'm sure they are to you," he said.

"We have a zero tolerance policy for any violation of animal welfare policies," Burrows said, adding that disciplinary actions up to and including dismissals of employees are possible. "We hold ourselves and everyone we work with to these high standards of care."

The video emergedone year after an Ontario court found Maple Lodge Farms guilty ofviolating the Health of Animals Act infailing to provide humane treatment for poultry.The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animalssays it is looking into the story.

"The Ontario SPCA is currently reviewing the information that was provided to us and we will be in consultation with industry experts," it said.

"We are still in the early stages of an investigation.The Ontario SPCA takes reports of cruelty and mistreatment seriously and will follow up appropriately pending the review of the information that was provided to us," the agency said in a statement.

Video makes disturbing claims

Mercy for Animals is basing its allegations on footage depicted in a video the groupsays was shot in the months after the court decision was handed down last March. The group said the video was shot by one of its employees who got a job at the plant.

Voice-overin the video accuses the company of transporting chickens for slaughter in trucks that are not temperature controlled, allowing them to freeze in transit. Footage appears to show dead birds being unloaded at the plant.

The video further claims that surviving chickens are subjected to inhumane treatment upon arrival at the plant. It claims birds sustain broken bones and crushed heads after rough treatment, experience additional pain after being hung by one leg from a slaughter line, and are subjected to painful shocks when dragged through electrified pools of water that fail to knock them unconscious as designed.

Images from the video appear to depict birds with body parts trapped in cage doors, animals with protruding bones hanging in the plantand chickens that emerge from the shock pool with their wings still flapping.

Mercy for Animals said these conditions were filmed despite a series of sanctions imposed on the poultry producer after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency laid charges under the Health of Animals Act. A court heard that more than 2,000 chickens died on two trips to slaughter in the winter of 2008-09.

Evidence suggested the birds succumbed after exposure to snow, frigid windsand freezing temperatures during loading, transport, and unloading.

Maple Lodge Farms was convicted in September 2013 on two of the counts, and the company pleaded guilty to 18 additional charges last March.

In handing down her ruling, the judge ordered the company to spend at least $1 million over the next three years to modify its transport vehicles and make other changes to ensure humane treatment ofthe birds.