Tyson Will No Longer Stab Chickens in the Nostrils

Tyson Foods announced it would end the cruel practice of “boning” companywide. Animal-rights group Compassion Over Killing (COK) revealed the shocking practice seen for the first time ever in undercover video footagee released in August. The footage, shot at a facility contracted by Tyson, shows young male breeder chicks being stabbed in the nostrils with a dull plastic “bone” in order to severely restrict their food intake. The same video shows blatant abuses at the Tyson supplier, which resulted in the termination of 10 employees. The nation’s sixth largest poultry producer, Georgia-based Wayne Farms—a broiler breeder factory farm—also committed to ending the cruel practice  COK executive director Erica Meier expressed that while ending this routine practice is a step in the right direction, chicken producers are failing to address the bigger picture. “We hope that Wayne Farms will take the next step and eliminate the underlying issue,” Meier says, adding that “breeder chickens are perpetually starved, in part by using these nasal ‘bones,’ in order to curb health defects caused by unnaturally fast growth.” Major chicken company Perdue followed suit by announcing it too will phase out the practice by January 1, 2017.