PETA India:: Factsheet

Failure of KFC to Get Their Supplier Farm Venkateshwara Hatcheries to meet Humane, Hygiene and Legal Standards for Animal Rearing and Handling

KFC’s chickens each have less space than a standard-sized sheet of paper.
Chickens are stuffed by the tens of thousands into overcrowded sheds, where they have no space to stretch their wings or move about freely. Owing to the lack of space in the shed, chickens stamp and climb on each other to get from one place to another. Chickens can be seen struggling and pushing other chickens aside to get to their food. The air in these sheds is heavy with ammonia fumes, making it difficult to breathe.

KFC’s chickens suffer from crippling leg deformities for their entire lives.
Birds are fed genetically modified feed in order to accelerate their growth rate, making them top-heavy. Ailments such as extreme obesity and fatty livers and kidneys, heart attacks, septicaemia and deformities caused by arthritis are a common sight. This abnormal weight gain, along with other ailments, causes stress to young bones, making the chickens’ legs crumple beneath them to the extent that they cannot even get to their feed. These crippling leg deformities then lead to diseases like arthritis and osteoporosis.

KFC’s chickens suffer from fatal heart attacks resulting from poor breeding.
Because of unsanitary living conditions along with increased growth rate, chickens die an early death. These chickens fall prey to ailments like heart attacks, fatty livers and kidneys, arthritis. According to the UK-based Animal Aid Organisation, ‘Many broiler chickens also die from ascites: Their growth rate is so rapid that their heart, lungs and circulatory system struggle to maintain sufficient oxygen levels. This results in breathlessness and distended abdomens’. In chickens, this disease is believed to be caused by the fact that the birds’ heart and lung capacity cannot keep up with their rapid growth rate.

KFC’s chickens are slaughtered before they are 6 weeks old.
When living in their natural surroundings, chickens live up to 10 years. However, at KFC factory farms, they are fed a steady dose of growth promoters, and they are slaughtered at 35 to 45 days. The reason behind this accelerated growth is a high-protein diet and a steady diet of growth promoters.

KFC’s chickens receive little to no veterinary care.
Owing to human negligence, the chickens have to suffer throughout their lives. Unhygienic conditions, growth-promoting feed and improper care on the part of the handlers lead to the rapid spread of dangerous diseases among chickens. The consequences of such diseases are usually fatal.

KFC’s chickens suffer at the hands of callous workers.
These birds routinely suffer broken bones from callous handling. The workers roughly grab them by their legs and stuff them into crates. It seems to be a common occurrence for workers at KFC supply farms to walk through an overcrowded shed bursting at the seams with chickens and nonchalantly stamp on a few who dare get in the way. A worker carelessly lights lamps and lets flames fall on the terrified birds. The air inside these filthy barns reeks of ammonia fumes, making it difficult for the birds even to breathe. These birds lie unattended at the farms, writhing in pain because of the carelessness of workers.

KFC’s chickens suffer during transport.
All chickens are subjected to the ordeal of catching, transportation and slaughter. The birds are typically grabbed by the feet and thrust into crates before being loaded onto lorries or are caught, three chickens in one hand and two in the other, and slammed into the lorry. Many suffer additional injuries at this time, and hundreds of chickens can die from a panic-induced crush each time the catching gang enters the shed.
Others die during the journey to the killing plants, often from heart attacks. Injuries and wounds account for the other fatalities. The most common injury is dislocation of the femur (the bone between the hip and the knee). This is almost certainly the result of rough handling by catching teams. Soft young bones break, and joints (often already painfully deformed) become dislocated when birds are caught.
According to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, it is an offence to do the following:

KFC: Quit India