Broken-Legged PETA ‘Chickens’ Have a Message for Defra
Why did these injured ‘chickens’ cross the road?
Harvey Giles
DEFRA plans to weaken chicken welfare regulations by legalising the catching of chickens by their legs and carrying them upside down before they’re thrown into crates and sent to slaughter. Here’s what it would mean for the birds:
That’s why today these two PETA “chickens” with broken legs descended on Number 10 Downing Street. We are calling on the government to maintain the few protections chickens have.
Harvey Giles
Bearing signs reading “Hands off our Legs!” and “Leg-Catching Breaks Bones,” the mascots reminded the government that allowing chickens to be caught and carried by the legs would contradict EU law, weaken UK law, and cause sensitive, intelligent animals even more suffering.
Chickens Deserve Better
Chickens are complex, curious birds who love to play and will run, jump, and sunbathe when given the chance.
Did you know that they can distinguish between more than 100 faces of their own species, have full-colour vision, and experience rapid eye movement sleep, which means they dream just like we do?
Yet on farms where chickens are exploited for their flesh and eggs, they’re kept in dark, cramped sheds, where they languish amid their own waste and most never get to feel the sun’s warmth on their back or grass beneath their feet. Many lose their feathers due to the stress of extreme noise, stench, and confinement.
Chickens used for eggs are kept alive until they’re no longer profitable. At around 18 months old, they are killed en masse: tens of thousands of them are roughly grabbed and chucked into trays, loaded onto lorries, and sent to a slaughterhouse.
Chickens killed for their flesh live only around 42 days, by which time many are immobile, unable to stand due to the crushing weight of their own unnaturally large bodies. Please spare chickens a miserable life and a terrifying death by never eating birds or their eggs.
Chickens Need Your Help
The very least Defra can do for these sensitive individuals is spare them additional stress and injury before they’re killed. It must not make catching them by their legs and flipping them upside down part of UK law. Join our campaign and tell Defra not to let chickens down:
