Costco’s Well known Rotisserie Chickens Are a Solution of Animal Cruelty, New Investigation Finds

An undercover investigation introduced this 7 days discovered that the rotisserie chickens offered at Costco for $4.99 occur with a concealed value of animal cruelty. Animal-rights team Mercy For Animals (MFA) investigated Costco’s Nebraska poultry farm that materials Lincoln High quality Poultry, a corporation that Costco set up and controls to source itself with quite a few of the 100 million rotisserie chickens it sells every year. 

All through the investigation, MFA uncovered chickens bred to mature so substantial so rapidly they can not assistance their weight and typically die from organ failure hundreds of countless numbers of birds crammed in filthy sheds, residing for months in their personal waste injured and sick chicks, some with internal organs exposed and other individuals not able to stroll birds struggling from open up wounds, ammonia burns, damaged bones, and twisted necks and beaks and significant piles of useless animals on facility grounds outdoors the barns housing reside chickens.

Costco fails its determination to animal welfare

The conclusions of the investigation stand in stark distinction to Costco’s claim that “animal welfare is a critical ingredient that has been built-in into all features of the chicken offer chain, from the hatchery to the grower barns to the processing facility.”

“Costco members have earned to know the truth of the matter about where their chickens arrive from and how Costco is failing to stay up to the animal welfare standards members anticipate and the business promises to guidance,” MFA President Leah Garcés reported. “While we are not able to transform the final result for the chickens suffering in this shameful footage, Costco has handle more than hundreds of thousands of animals’ lives and can choose speedy motion by adopting the Far better Hen Commitment, a established of larger welfare expectations that would ban the cruel methods uncovered by this investigation.”

MFA has launched a petition to need that Costco adopt the Superior Chicken Determination—which many others, this sort of as Whole Food items Marketplace, Popeyes, Burger King, and Subway have beforehand adopted—in an hard work to conclusion the cruelty exposed by its investigation.