A trailer unit loaded with hundreds of chickens overturned in a traffic crash in Christchurch. Yellow plastic crates crammed with white feathered chickens were strewn across the road. Some crates split open, scattering chickens. Some landed upside down, creating a pile up and smothering those trapped inside. Some birds were crushed to death, and others injured under the tipped trailer. A JCB was needed to lift the crates upright again.
A crowd of workers and responders manually collected and re-packed the poor chooks. Grabbed by their feet and gathered upside down in handfuls, it was hard to tell who was dead and who was still alive, temporarily anyway. Some chickens were seen sitting in groups on the roadside like a clump of white cabbages. A police officer at the scene was credited as saying there were no significant injuries. The premise of this statement is shameful, that only humans matter. It is indeed a relief that no people were injured in this accident. But to so casually dismiss the fatalities and painful injuries suffered by those chickens is nothing short of disgraceful.
A truck carrying hundreds of chickens rolled outside Christchurch. Photo credit: NZ Herald, George Heard.
Photos and video shared by news outlets were met with horror from the public.
“Poor little buggers look terrible and manky, and that wouldn’t all be due to the roll”. “They look abused”. “They can’t even run away. They can hardly move”. “They look in such bad condition from where they’ve been”. “They don’t look like very healthy chooks mate”. “Look at the terrible condition of these birds”.
The overwhelming theme of comments blanketing social media was shock at the obviously poor condition of the animals. Chickens missing a lot of feathers had pink, raw skin patches exposed. Dirty feet and filth-caked undersides. Pale, sad combs – no vivid, healthy comb colour to be seen. Notably round, inflated birds with profoundly impaired walking. Even given a chance to break for freedom, the chickens are so chronically unwell they can’t even make a run for it.
Overall, it was a painfully clear picture of ill health, the results of poor practises and low standards. One doesn’t need a specialist veterinary science degree to recognise suffering when we see it. The public has eyes, and they know what they saw.
If we discovered animals in that condition in someone’s backyard, we’d all call the SPCA to report negligence. But that’s just it, isn’t it? We never usually get to see these animals. And that’s by design. It’s called Industry.
Business as usual
Upwards of 120 million chickens are bred for our consumption in Aotearoa every year. But we never see them before they’re crumb-coated or on a shrink-wrapped tray. Driving through our bucolic back roads, these curious, clever birds are not seen en masse outside, the same way sheep and cows are part of our everyday landscape. And that’s because they’re in factory farm conditions, kept away from scrutiny.
The only time Kiwis are afforded a glimpse, it’s carefully curated. One of the more boutique producers had a live stream cam on their chicken farm once. Anyone could have a gander. But it only ever showed outside the shed, the comparatively few chickens still young and mobile enough to make it out. We were never allowed to see inside. And today, we can’t even see the outside. That live camera feed is long gone.
The only other time we see meat chickens is in promotional footage of certification schemes, reminiscent of real estate listings showing only the most flattering angles. Cute, fluffy young chicks, newly placed in a shed with fresh, dry litter on the floor and plenty of space (given no one has started growing or pooping yet.)
If only a live stream existed inside those sheds for the next month, as the floor gets covered with acidic, ammonia-laced waste, which the birds sit on their entire lives, often getting chemical burns on their feet and hocks. Space to move is ever shrinking, as the birds grow at an outrageous rate. The Cobb and Ross breed chickens used here are genetically selected to grow so quickly, it is equivalent to a newborn baby morphing into a hulking 165kg person in less than 6 weeks. This terrifying rate of growth is against nature, and predictably, creates the exact problems the public was aghast to see today.
A truck carrying hundreds of chickens rolled outside Christchurch. Photo credit: NZ Herald, George Heard.
This wasn’t the first chicken truck to overturn, and it won’t be the last.
But it is one of the only opportunities for the public to see the reality of the chickens we breed for sale. Their existence is filled with suffering and discomfort. According to the Poultry Industry of New Zealand, around six thousand chickens die or have to be culled on those excrement-covered floors every day in our small country, just due to the poor health coded into their genetics.
The very least we can do is improve the reality we force upon them. Their lives and experiences matter. Their capacity to feel pain matters. It is our duty to act with care, a standard we would be held to if these birds were in our own backyards.
New Zealand urgently needs to strengthen our chicken welfare standards.
The crucial fulcrum is improving the breeds – the genetics we subject chickens to. We must adopt established best practice in poultry welfare, the global gold standard of healthier breeds of chickens called The Better Chicken Commitment. Genetics where chickens grow at a more natural rate and experience improved welfare in every metric that matters. Like walking without pain.
We can and should update our baseline so healthy chickens could at least cross the road, if ever given the chance.
A “Better Chicken” example of healthier, slower-growing breeds. Photo credit: Wakker Dier.
This article appeared on May 15th 2025 in The Press. Read an abridged version here.