Horrific Undercover Video Shows Male Chicks Ground Up at Hatchery

An animal rights group, Chicago-based Mercy for Animals, has published a video showing what happens to unwanted male chicks at egg hatcheries. The video shows the unwanted chicks being ground up alive at an Iowa plant.

The undercover video was shot at a hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. Here's how the organization describes the video:

For the nearly 150,000 male chicks who hatch every 24 hours at this Hy-Line facility, their lives begin and end the same day. Grabbed by their fragile wings by workers known as "sexers," who separate males from females, these young animals are callously thrown into chutes and hauled away to their deaths. They are destined to die on day one because they cannot produce eggs and do not grow large or fast enough to be raised profitably for meat. Their lives are cut short when they are dropped into a grinding machine – tossed around by a spinning auger before being torn to pieces by a high-pressure macerator.

Over 30 million male chicks meet their fate this way each year at this facility.

Nathan Runkle, the group's executive director, said the following at a news conference in Des Moines:

"We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable? I don't think that most people would."

Maybe I was naive, but I had no idea this happened. What about you readers?

Watch the video if you dare.