MPI decides not to prosecute Heyden Farms despite shocking hen video

Thursday, 7 April 2016

A Waikato poultry farm where animal activists filmed graphic conditions will not be prosecuted even though the footage showed unacceptable practices, the Ministry for Primary Industries says.

The video was shot last month at Heyden Farms, which uses bigger 'colony cages' instead of the battery cages which are being phased out.

The farm is owned by the Van der Heyden family and has former Fonterra chairman Sir Henry Van der Heyden as a shareholder.

In the video, hens appear to be in overcrowded conditions, and several dead hens lie stuck in the bars. 

READ MORE: Animal rights group SAFE calls on Countdown to dump cage-farmed eggs

Animal rights group Farmwatch which made the film said it lodged a complaint with MPI soon afterwards.

An MPI spokesman said the ministry had made an unannounced inspection of the farm after the complaint and spent two days investigating.

It was clear 'the footage that has been released to the public is not acceptable practice,' but the ministry's inspectors did not see all of the issues that were filmed. 

However, it found some standards were not being met, in relation to overcrowding in some cages, removal of dead birds and the state of the live birds.

The ministry had continued to keep an eye on the facility and said that at this stage it was satisfied 'corrective action has been taken.'

The spokesman said MPI's first priority was to mitigate the suffering of animals and prevent it from re-occurring.

'Laying charges is not always the best solution for the animals' future.'

Supermarket companies Foodstuffs and Countdown both said they had reminded their eggs suppliers that they had to adhere to government standards on animal welfare.

Foodstuffs said it took a small amount of budget eggs from the Independent Egg Producers Co-op, which Heyden Farms supplied.

Countdown said it did not take colony cage eggs from the farm but had taken steps to remove the Morning Harvest label, which uses the farm's conventional cage eggs, until it could get assurances from the supplier.

It called the video 'disturbing and disappointing'.

However, Farmwatch investigator John Darroch said Countdown's move was 'short-term damage control'.

He said protesters would campaign outside two Countdowns in Auckland and Wellington on Friday to pressure the chain to follow its Australian parent Woolworths and ban cage-raised eggs.

The other major supermarket company Foodstuffs had not been forgotten either, he said.

Darroch, who helped film the video, said colony cages were fundamentally unsuitable.

'The bars across the bottom of the cage are resulting in large numbers of hens getting stuck and when I was there, I saw several wings and heads just lying on the floor.

'It took me 20 minutes to rescue one of the trapped hens and there's no way workers are going to be spending that much time trying to get the hens out.'

'The way they work themselves in, is they get further and further stuck, so my very strong feeling is that workers are ripping these hens out and ripping off limbs in the first place. That's the only explanation I can think of.'

Darroch said the Heyden farm was chosen at random.

Paul Van Der Heyden, the farm's general manager, referred all comment to the Egg Producers Federation, which called it an unacceptable but isolated incident.

Michael Brooks, the federation's executive director, said the footage was 'most definitely disturbing' but showed poor practice around cage checking and clearing.

It showed 'birds not typical of the rest of the farm, and certainly not typical of the colony farming system'.

'Colony farming maintains low disease rates, low mortality and higher hygiene standards than current cage farming, which is why the industry is well underway with the transition to this model.'

The federation's veterinarian Kerry Mulqueen said the severe feather loss shown in the video appeared to be due to an underlying condition and was not typical of the rest of the flock.