Slaughterhouses abandon chickens for 72 hours MAFF’s Third Warning

n November 2018, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Wealth (MHLW) released an investigation report on the matter of slaughterhouses cramming chickens in cages and abandoning them for long hours.

72 hours of Abandonment

The investigation by the MHLW was mentioned during the deliberation for the Ministry of Forestry, Agriculture, and Fisheries (MAFF) in the Diet on 21st November 2018. According to the report, the MHLW investigated 28 slaughterhouses out of 32 (as of 2016) in the country, excluding three houses in Okayama and one in Fukuoka.

Investigations conducted by the MHLW typically focus on sanitary issues.
Therefore, the results don’t present the facts that chickens cannot raise their heads because the containers are too small, they are piled up, their bones are broken, they get attacked by wild animals, or their legs get ripped off.
The statistics only show that more than half of chickens become contaminated by feces and eggs coming from above.
That said, readers can tell something about animal welfare from the report.
For instance, it discusses how long chickens are abandoned.
It reveals that about half of slaughterhouses abandon chickens for longer than 12 hours. Some leave them longer than 2 days or 72 hours.

How long could you withstand these conditions while being unable to move without eating or drinking?

Chickens are forced to do so longer than 12 to 72 hours.

Some facilities just rinse chickens off with cold water.
The condition gets more brutal when chickens are rinsed off by cold water in winter.

However, we are seeing some improvement, too.
7 facilities are trying to shorten the length of the waiting period by planning the delivery of chickens more carefully by coordinating with farmers.
It’s unclear exactly which facilities are making the attempt, but it will definitely mitigate the pain for birds.
On the other hand, 7 facilities are not trying to improve.
Some of them stated that they don’t think it’s important to care about the contamination during the waiting period.
It is utterly speechless.
Others are in the process of improving and/or unclear about their status.

The third notice:

The MAFFs gave their third notice to request improvements in March 2019.
The notice is targeting chicken farmers:

Regarding Well-Planned delivery of Chickens to Slaughterhouses
There have been notices issued by the government regarding the said title on March 26th 2018 and November 15th 2018 to each prefecture.
With the recent price drop of eggs, more adult chickens are expected to be sent to slaughterhouses.
We are concerned that there may be conundrums to maintain the standards if the concerned parties are too busy to deal with chickens properly where there may be cases in which chickens are crammed during the transportation or forced to wait a long period of time at slaughterhouses.
Also, some stated that the slaughtering vendors were the ones to ask chicken farmers to send chickens to them, which makes it hard for them to ask for well-planned delivery, according to the investigation conducted by the MHLW.
With that said, we request all prefectures that they inform chicken farmers to be mindful about the related regulations and deliver chickens in a well-planned fashion when asked by the slaughtering vendor.

Chicken farmers should proactively deliver chickens in a well-planned manner not only when asked by the slaughtering vendors.
It’s shameful to hurt chickens further like this after using their bodies so brutally to steal eggs from them.
Some say that agriculture business owners don’t want to hurt animals, either.
However, it’s hard to believe this statement because of acts like this.

It’s been a year since the MAFF and the MHLW issued the notice.
We demand they should instruct more strictly and set the date to achieve this goal.

The investigation by the Animal Rights Center in 2018.

Send your voice

Send your opinions to the MHLW who is responsible to manage chicken slaughterhouses and the Ministry of Environment who is responsible to manage animal welfare issues.