Radio New Zealand released exposé footage from inside free-range chicken farms that we’ve been waiting to show you.
Brave volunteer investigators went to look inside Tegel free-range sheds raising chickens for meat. The shocking thing is that those sheds were SPCA Certified operations. What those investigators recorded is horrifying. What is shown is exactly what the chicken industry tries so hard to hide. And now, it’s in the news.
Read the news story and listen to the radio coverage
The footage reveals awful conditions and profound chicken suffering. It shows chickens with exposed skin and missing feathers, sitting in layers of their own waste, unable to walk more than a few steps. Chickens stuck on their back, unable to get up again. One is seen that’s been left decaying on the filthy floor. According to industry figures, up to 6,000 birds a day die or are culled because they are so sick or lame. This bird was one of those.
All this suffering is a direct result of the unnaturally rapid growth coded into the DNA of the chickens sold by Tegel and Ingham’s.
Chickens are naturally curious and playful. They have a lifespan similar to most dogs and will bond with humans if given the opportunity. But the chickens raised commercially for meat in NZ have been selectively bred to grow abnormally fast. The consequences of this are evident in the footage: birds who have fallen on their backs, unable to get back up; birds with severe lameness who can barely walk; birds with painful ammonia burns on their legs.
Tegel and Ingham’s are profiting from pain and misery – while the SPCA have effectively shielded the chicken industry by putting their blue Certified stamp on these chronically unwell baby birds.
Most crucially, and we cannot emphasise this enough, what these overgrown baby birds are suffering represents business as usual for New Zealand chicken producers. In fact, it’s the best currently available – SPCA Certified free-range – and volunteer investigators secured the evidence to prove it.
Investigators repeatedly documented the shocking conditions at two New Zealand factory farms. First in 2018, then in 2019 and then in 2024, inside sheds that produce frankenchickens for Tegel. By 2024 these farms were SPCA Certified, but not much had changed.
This evidence is horrifying to anyone who cares about animal welfare. Every time there is another study, another survey, or focus group of caring New Zealanders, it concludes the same thing – most people are in the dark about how chickens bred for meat are farmed. Up until now, they’ve trusted the SPCA to be get it right.
It’s deeply alarming to think chickens clearly in pain are included in a trusted welfare scheme, with no deadline for phasing out the breeds of chicken that have suffering coded in their DNA.
One lucky chicken was able to be rescued. If you’ve been following us for a while, you might have met Barnaby.
What his rescue revealed were deep, painful ammonia burns on his feet and the backs of his legs. These burns needed daily veterinary treatment with painkillers and antibiotics to give him a chance at life. He was just one of many birds filmed and photographed with these severe burns. These unnaturally fast growing breeds are very susceptible to foot and hock burns because their legs struggle to hold them up. They spend most of their time in contact with the filthy litter.
Which is why this must change. Truly meaningful, good welfare only comes when the current broken breeds are replaced with better, healthier genetics. This has already happened in many countries overseas. Hundreds of food brands have demanded better, and as a result the chicken industry has been forced to shift.
How has the SPCA responded?
It seems perhaps the SPCA has found themselves between a rock and a hard place. The trusted blue badge appears caught between advocating for chicken welfare standards on one hand, while also endorsing the poor practices of mega chicken production on the other. This has allowed the powerful poultry lobby to be shielded from major criticism, until now.
When investigators came to us with this worrying footage from a Certified property, we took it to the SPCA. Since then, investigators wanted to check the properties again, but have chosen not to return out of caution because bird flu has been found in some wild birds on New Zealand shores.
The SPCA only released a voluntary standard to address the breeds of chickens AFTER they were contacted by RNZ about the footage.
This is a huge and meaningful step forward and fantastic news that now the SPCA are publicly sharing plans to strengthen part of their standard, most crucially, requiring healthier breeds. The critical step is missing, though, because there is no timeline to make the new standard part of the baseline SPCA certification. It won’t secure the change so desperately needed if their Certified label remains on abnormally fast-growing breeds indefinitely.