A new Animal Welfare Institute report states that the United States Department of Agriculture cited the Morganton Case Farms plant 33 times for inhumanely handling chickens between 2015 and 2016.
The violations were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to the USDA, which performs humane handling checks nearly every day at each of the 300 federally inspected plants, the report said.
Case Farms’ 33 violations were the second most out of all the inspected chicken plants, behind Simmons Prepared Foods in Arkansas, which had 40. Case Farms of Ohio had an additional 26, according to the report.
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In February 2016, a USDA inspector wrote about a meeting that was called after Case Farms had six Good Commercial Practice violations in the previous two months, according to the report. Three of these violations involved animal mistreatment.
The violations consisted of a live bird going into a scalder, a bird being run over by a truck and a live bird being found in a barrel for dead birds, the report said. The chicken that went into the scalder was "holding its head up, was blinking, and was observing its surroundings," according to the violation.
Dena Jones, the farm animal program director for AWI, said Case Farms and the other companies at the top of the list stand out because of the different kind of violations they have.
“I think it was about 2013 or 2014 when Case Farms (violations) seemed to just go up,” Jones said. “Generally, I will say, slaughter plants typically have a problem in one or two areas. But the ones at the top of our list have problems across the board.”
The report also provided details regarding six other Case Farms violations in Morganton. One violation that took place in August 2015 stated that a worker in charge of hanging chickens was holding them by their necks and throwing them, the report said. The same behavior was reported in the previous month.
In September 2015, about 45 birds drowned due to a power outage. An inspector ordered the living birds to be removed from the line, but they still were hanging upside down 30 minutes later, the report said. Some were near death, while others already had died.
An inspector also saw an employee throw a bird on the ground in October 2016. The employee then kicked it multiple times and pinned it against the wall, “allowing no escape,” according to the report.
Similar violations occurred at the Ohio plant, including an employee stepping on a chicken’s back after it struggled to remove itself from a pile of dead birds, the report said. Two Case Farms plants in Ohio were at the top of a previous AWI report for humane handling violations from 2011 to 2014.
“Animals, including birds, do suffer in a quite similar way to humans,” Jones said. “The fact that they’re going to be used for food isn’t a reason to be treated inhumanely, and the fact that there are companies with good track records show it can be done. If other plants can do it, Case Farms should be able to.”
But although the report listed violations that were inhumane and outside the standards of accepted practice, Jones said the slaughtering system is inherently inhumane.
The report included a diagram that explains how most chickens are killed in United States plants. The process begins with chickens arriving at the plant crammed inside crates. Workers then toss or dump birds out of their cages onto conveyor belts, which can cause injuries.
This diagram of how chickens are slaughtered was included in a report, which stated that Case Farms of Morganton had 33 inhumane violations in 2015 and 2016.
The birds are then sorted based on whether they are alive or dead. The live birds then are hung by their legs from the slaughter line, the report said.
The next step is stunning the birds in electrified water. There are no legal minimum current levels, the report said. After a chicken is stunned, an automated blade then cuts its neck.
Birds are known to raise their heads to avoid being dunked in the electric water and to avoid the blade, according to the report. Workers are then in charge of manually cutting the necks that were missed.
The final step is dunking the birds in a tank of scalding water to loosen feathers from the carcasses. Birds that drown in the scald tank are referred to as “red birds” or “cadaver birds,” the report said.
”The better method is gas stunning,” Jones said. “What’s bad about electric stunning is they are alive and conscious during the process.”
Gas stunning is widespread in the turkey industry, and Jones hopes the chicken industry will consider adopting the technique. Current “live shackling” techniques cause birds to injure themselves as they flap while hanging upside down, and live chickens can make workers frustrated, she said.
Nine billion chickens, turkeys and ducks were slaughtered in the United States under federal inspection in 2016, the report said. During that same year, there were more national humane handling violations than in any previous year since 2006, when the USDA began documenting Good Commercial Practice violations, the report said.
Jones said the poultry industry does not have many of the regulations that other farm animal industries have to punish companies that commit violations.
“That’s what we consider one of the problems with poultry plants is there really aren’t any (reproductions),” Jones said. “What ends up happening is the industry just complies with their own standards, but there’s no action.”
The only form of punishment happens on a temporary basis when an inspector notices a major problem, Jones said.
“If he observes something happening like 10 birds drowning in the scalding tank, he can temporarily stop the line and say, “Hey, you need to fix it.’”
Jones said she hopes lawmakers will consider creating laws that limit companies’ abilities to inhumanely handle animals. In the meantime, she hopes Case Farms will take action on its own.
“Because we see Case Farms having a bad record, we want the company to take steps to see why they have more problems than other plants do,” Jones said.
Attempts to reach Case Farms’ and its external public relations company for a comment regarding the USDA violations were unsuccessful.
In addition to handling conditions, Case Farms recently has been questioned about its policies regarding employee working conditions.
An article published in May by ProPublica stated that Case Farms had 74 Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations between 2010 and 2016. The poultry plant with the next highest number of violations during that time period was House of Raeford with 17.
Multiple groups also gathered outside Case Farms on Aug. 14 to protest what they said is a policy that prevents workers from using the bathroom when they need to.
Ryan Wilusz is a staff writer and can be reached at rwilusz@morganton.com or at 828-432-8941.
