Meat + Poultry - October 2004 - 60

Playing catch up

he release this past summer of video footage showing workers at a Pilgrim's Pride Corp. plant abusing live chickens got
plenty of play by the general press. The news even showed
up in a French newspaper.
In the video, plant workers are seen kicking chickens, stomping on
them and throwing them against a wall. In some instances, instead
of placing the chickens on the processing line, they were throwing
them on the floor. Pilgrim's Pride, based in Pittsburg, Texas, responded swiftly by firing eight hourly workers identified in the footage and
three supervisors. The company is also implementing an extensive
program of internal and third party animal welfare audits. Company
executives have enlisted my services to help improve their plants' animal welfare programs.
During the 1970s and 1980s I worked on many construction
projects and observed the installation of handling and restraining
equipment in beef and pork slaughter plants. During that period I
observed that untrained and unsupervised employees would often
abuse animals. In most cases, one person would usually be the
ringleader of several others. It is my opinion that the footage from
the Pilgrim's Pride plant was indicative of corporate management
failing to do their job.
People manage the things they measure. Beef and pork packers have been auditing and measuring their handling and stunning
operations for more than five years. This has resulted in significant
improvements.
Company management of has also undergone a culture change.
Animal welfare standards are now part of their system; the same way
HACCP standards are a part of their food safety system. The tipping
point for major change in the beef and pork market segments was
the beginning of the McDonald's audits in 1999.
The chicken industry is behind beef and pork when it comes to
animal welfare. However, the shocking Pilgrim's Pride video may
be the tipping point. Hopefully it will result in poultry industry managers becoming serious about animal welfare instead of trying to
avoid the issue.
I was appalled during one discussion with an industry spokesman
regarding how to score broken wings during audits of poultry plants.
He tried to tell me that a dislocated wing should not be counted as a
broken wing. My reply was that dislocated wings cause pain and that
both dislocated and broken wings must be counted when a broken
wing audit is done.
When lightweight 5-pound birds are caught and transported, a good
catching crew can easily achieve a score of 1 percent or less birds with
broken or dislocated wings. With heavier birds (more than 6.5 pounds)
the percentage of broken wings should be 3 percent or less.
The abuse video was a wake-up call, and the chicken industry
should implement strict auditing guidelines with objective numerical
scoring. Within the past two years I have visited chicken farms and
processing plants in Brazil, Thailand, France and Australia. These

MEAT&POULTRY

By Dr. Temple Grandin
meat&poultry@sosland.com

plants are excellent examples of well-managed operations. Many of
the operations make U.S. plants look bad when it comes to animal
welfare and the overall quality of their operation.
Travel is a great educator. A trip to the best operations in other
countries would be an eye opener for many poultry plant managers.
The present chicken industry animal welfare auditing guidelines are
still too vague. Strict numerical standards similar to the American
Meat Institute guidelines for beef and pork need to be implemented.
One important measure is gait score for assessing lameness. The
scoring system should use the same criteria mentioned in an article
published by Marion Stamp Dawkins in the journal Nature. Her extensive field study covered more than 100 commercial chicken houses.
Lameness can be scored with a simple three-point scoring system
when the birds are ready for catching. The system includes:
1. Walks normally for 10 paces with an even gait.
2. Walks 10 paces with a crooked or uneven gait.
3. Not able to walk or crippled and walks less than 10 paces.

The chicken industry is way
behind beef and pork when it
comes to animal welfare.
The easiest way to do the gait score is to use folding wire or cardboard panels to corral approximately 100 chickens in a pen against
the wall. They can then be scored for lameness as they walk out
through an opened panel. A total of three groups should be scored in
three different parts of the building. All of the chickens caught in the
corral must be scored because lame birds will walk out last.
In the Nature study, 72.6 percent of the birds had a normal gait
score. This score should be the baseline for continuous improvement.
One company in Australia has done a fantastic job growing 8-pound
birds. During my visit, 95 percent of these birds walked normally and
some of them ran away. They really know how to raise and handle
chicken right. Our poultry industry has a lot to learn.
M&P
The author operates Grandin Livestock Systems, Inc., Fort
Collins, Colo., and is a faculty member in the animal science
department at Colorado State Univ.

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about this article are welcome.
E-mail the author at: meat&poultry@sosland.com

OCTOBER 2004

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Meat + Poultry - October 2004

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