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What we HAVE achieved
Thousands of animals are suffering on farms across the country. Their abuse and exploitation goes on behind closed doors, but we won’t let it go unnoticed. Animal Justice Project’s brave and dedicated undercover investigators continue to go above and beyond to expose and end animal exploitation. We conduct investigations aimed at exposing farms, rearers, dealers, traders and abattoirs across the country. No job is too difficult for our team.
"Through covert surveillance footage, animal suffering can be witnessed at first hand by the viewer. Seeing such footage educates people who can then make informed choices about their diets and lifestyle. Covert investigations are essential to aid social change, I am very proud to play my part in this process.”
Animal Justice Project Investigator
Animal Justice Project Investigator
1,866,027
Views on our videos in 2023
EXPOSING THE TRUTH
Animal Justice Project undercover investigators who put themselves at risk day and night to expose the reality for animals on intensive and so-called ‘high welfare’ farms. We reveal the truth behind the labels and create landmark changes along the way.
They are a highly skilled, specialist team with years of experience in field work. They gather intelligence using various methods and highly sophisticated surveillance techniques. All of our investigations are carried out to an extremely high standard, with care taken to ensure material can be used for prosecutions.
They are a highly skilled, specialist team with years of experience in field work. They gather intelligence using various methods and highly sophisticated surveillance techniques. All of our investigations are carried out to an extremely high standard, with care taken to ensure material can be used for prosecutions.
Past Investigations and Exposés
In just a few years, Animal Justice Project has become a leader in the field of undercover investigations. By continuing to expose cruelty, the industry can no longer deny there are more than “a few bad apples” and public perceptions are changing. Animal exploitation is the norm on farms. Legislation won’t change this while animals continue to be treated solely as products whose only value is profit.
RSPCA ASSURED CHICKEN HATCHERY
2024 - horrors at annyalla chicks ltd
We went undercover inside the UK’s largest independent hatchery, Annyalla Chicks, at their site in Boston, Lincolnshire, to reveal the secretive slaughter of newborn chicks. The company hatches over three million chicks per week on an industrial scale, grading and shipping them to farms across the UK. A short life of suffering awaits them, but the abuse begins in the hatchery.
- Chicks hatched on an industrial scale
- Newly hatched chicks crushed under the wheels of a trolley and trodden on
- Live chicks thrown out with egg waste
- Abysmal care as chicks are thrown between crates during grading
- Chicks shredded alive as they are macerated
- Cannibalism, injuries and commonplace death
Rotten: Cage-freE Exposed
2024 - Suffering at RSPCA Assured Free-range farms
In part three of our first-of-its-kind investigation series, we targeted the highest level of so-called ‘welfare’ that the UK egg industry has to offer by infiltrating farms associated with directors at the British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA). Once again we showed that awards, accolades and assurance schemes mean nothing to the animals trapped inside these farms.
- Dead hens left to decompose on shed floors for days, or potentially weeks
- Extreme feather loss and crowded, filthy conditions
- Severe bullying and feather pecking — one hen was pecked to death on camera
- Commonplace injuries and suffering including prolapses, growths and hens suspected of being egg bound
- Hens unable too weak to jump to upper tiers to access food or water
- Hens not being let outside for up to three days
- Shocking examples of ‘enrichment’ including plastic bottles and bags
GRESSINGHAM’S DUCKS: CAUGHT FOR SLAUGHTER
2023 - gressingham foods duck farm & depopulation
Exposing the violent process of catching ducks for commercial duck ‘meat’, we reveal the ingrained sadistic behaviours that ducks faced from Keyo’s workers, a specialist catching company, before they are aggressively crated and transported to be killed at Gressingham Foods’ slaughterhouse in Suffolk.
- Abundant health issues including eye and nasal infections and blindness
- Ducks were severely lame, had twisted legs and bent necks
- The dead were left to rot amongst the living
- Birds were strangled for almost a minute by workers as they were flung around to scare others
- Ducks were slammed into plastic crates, trapping their heads, wings and legs
- 920 ducks were killed or died in just 42 days
ROTTEN: Chicken catching 'gangs'
2023 - rspca assured chicken catchers
In part-two of our first-of-its-kind investigation series, we exposed the secretive nocturnal world of chicken catcher ‘gangs’ who use violence, fear and intimidation to ‘depopulate’ hens at the ‘end of lay’. We embedded our investigator with RSPCA Assured ‘chicken processing specialists’, AD Harvey to uncover The Foul Truth.
- Hens were repeatedly kicked, hit and thrown by workers during ‘sweeping’
- Birds were stamped on, and hit by crates and feeders
- Hens were slammed into crates viciously, trapping their heads, wings and limbs
- Many were injured, stunned and some were killed as a result of this violent process
- Workers grabbed hens and held many of them upside down by one leg in flagrant breaches of both government and RSPCA Assured guidelines
- AD Harvey Founder’s grandson, and Catching Manager, is repeatedly filmed condoning and endorsing these breaches
ROTTEN: 'Enriched' colony cage egg farm
2023 - Bird Bros egg farm
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In a first-of-its-kind undercover investigation series, we are cracking open a Rotten industry. In part one, our undercover investigator infiltrates ‘Sunny Farm’, a colony cage farm, run by East Anglia’s largest egg producer, Bird Bros. What we found inside was far from sunny…
- Distressing and appalling conditions within cages
- Trapped hens, with some dying and others being trampled upon
- Neglect resulting in slow deaths and the heinous killing of sick and dying hens
- Daily findings of decomposing dead hens in their cages
- Severe feather loss and bald patches on countless hens
MORRISONS’ SLAUGHTERHOUSE
2022 - WOODHEAD BROS ABATTOIR
Using an undercover worker, we infiltrated one of Morrisons’ slaughterhouses, Woodhead Bros in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Using brand-new tactics, we have filmed the terrifying final moments that cows and pigs face at this supermarket giant’s abattoir.
- Terrified pigs repeatedly hit
- Sick, lame and injured pigs transported to slaughter
- Electric prods used on cows
- Pigs forced into the gas chamber of a ‘gondola’
- Vets failing to act as workers breached legislation
- All happening in full view of CCTV
Red Tractor assured pig farm
2022/2023 - bickmarsh hall farm
Filmed over a three-month period, the suffering at Bickmarsh Hall farm was clear. From nursing pigs being confined in cages for weeks at a time to tiny piglets being discarded amongst masses of other decomposing pigs inside waste bins. This standard UK pig farm shows the spine-chilling reality of what the industry tries so hard to hide.
- Severely lame pigs were left suffering for hours, despite being known to workers
- The farmers physically and verbally assaulted pigs
- Dead animals were discarded in waste bins, filled with masses of bodies
- Nursing mothers were confined to cages for weeks at a time in farrowing crates
- Animals were left in faeces-laden, sodden conditions, without a clean place to lay down
rspca assured pig transport
2022 - peddars pigs
125 hours of footage, over a two-month, period revealed the barbaric abuse inflicted upon pigs and tiny piglets by Peddars Pigs’ workers, an RSPCA Assured company. This so-called ‘higher welfare’ company offers rearing and transportation services but our undercover footage revealed a culture of violence towards animals.
- Pigs were shocked with electric goads, causing undue suffering
- Tiny piglets were kicked out the back of transport trailers and thrown onto concrete floors
- Animals were crushed with boards and metal doors, causing them to cry in terror
- Panicked animals fought to escape but were met with further electric shocks
- Violence was widespread, with loading and unloading footage from NINE farms
Award-winning goat dairy
2022 - Delamere Dairy
Over a two-month period, we investigated a major goat dairy brand, Delamere Dairy, at one of their flagship contracted farms, Pasture House Farm in North Yorkshire. Producing over 40 million ‘award-winning’ products every year, this is one of the UK’s largest goat dairies and is seen across all major supermarkets. Holding over 2,000 goats, the owner, Phil Ormerod, is the Director for the Milking Goat Association, a body representing UK commercial goat farmers.
- All goats were kept in a zero-grazing system, unable to ever go outdoors and display natural behaviours such as grazing
- Many sick and lame individuals
- Nanny goats who were so heavily pregnant they could not stand up, left immobile under their immense size
- Male and female day-old kid goats killed on farm in front of other goats, filmed as a UK-first
- Kids were left mutilated as they have their tiny horns removed in a sadistic process called ‘disbudding’
- Verbal and physical abuse against goats of all ages
- Over 100 dead goats left on piles strewn across the farm, even on a public footpath open to scavengers
Organic Dairy Farm
2021 - Bath Soft Cheese organic dairy
The seven-month investigation (273 hours of footage) exposes cruel and inhumane practices at a multi award-winning organic dairy farm in Bath. What we filmed was a far cry from the picture painted by this farm and shows that organic still means pain, suffering and death.These included:
- Three-day old calves being dragged from mothers by rope around their neck
- One calf crying for over 39 hours straight after separation
- Mother cows bellowing for their babies for hours after and appearing to seek out their babies
- Calves housed in small isolations pens significantly smaller than the pens shown to visitors on the farm’s ‘open farm day’ (which we filmed at undercover)
- One newly-separated calf housed in a pen for 28 days – twice as long as the farm’s two week claim
- Verbal and physical abuse of cattle – staff members slapping, punching, and kicking cows in the face, legs and udders; as well as hitting them with alkathene pipes
- Multiple cases of lameness correlating to ‘impaired mobility’ and ‘extremely impaired mobility’ according to veterinary opinion
- Rough dehorning of calves
- Depriving calves of milk
- Tiny calves sent to slaughter via a dealer, Will Pollett near Bristol
Small Abattoir Slaughter: Pigs, sheep and bulls
2021 – G & Gb Hewitt abattoir
Shocking hidden-camera footage obtained over two months (200 hours of footage) by Animal Justice Project at a Cheshire-based slaughterhouse deemed ‘generally satisfactory’ by the Government’s own food watchdog, ‘Food Standards Agency’, reveals horrific cruelty to pigs, sheep and cows before they die:
- Bulls violently beaten for over 40 minutes (over 200 times) by staff and the manager with electric goads before being killed
- Piglets having throats cut, then being thrown onto a pile with no checking of signs of life, and finally being thrown into hot water tank
- Tiny piglets brutally thrown into the tank while apparently still conscious
- Short stun times, as little as one second, and poor stunning of pigs and sheep. The animals kicked out and gasped whilst hanging after stun
- The immediate cutting/dressing of pigs’ legs following ‘sticking’ and whilst pigs thrashed on shackles, thus not allowing enough time for the animals to bleed out
- Stunning equipment repeatedly failed, causing panic and distress to pigs and sheep
- Long ‘stun-to-kill’ time
- The government-appointed veterinarian not leaving the lairage to check on animals stunned and killed
Calf Trade and Slaughter
2020 – Oaklands Livestock Centre and Hewitts Abattoir
2021 - Buitelaar ‘Collection Centre’
2021 - Buitelaar ‘Collection Centre’
An extensive undercover project spanning five months at a dealer’s yard where tiny, ‘reject’ male dairy calves, labelled “mongrels” and “grass rats” by some farmers, are sent to slaughter, as well as the killing of calves inside an abattoir. In a separate investigation, our team filmed inside a calf ‘collection centre’ in Wrexham.
- Tiny calves, some from dairy farms supplying Sainsbury, thrown down ramps, kicked and hit by staff
- A culture of abuse amongst workers towards calves
- Calves starved of food for over 21 hours and no water provided for unweaned calves at any time during filming. A breach of UK law
- Brutal killing of young calves in abattoir
- Calves taken to the slaughterhouse as young as nine days old and being left all night in cold, wet lairage
Beef & Veal
2020 – Berryfields Farm and Badgers Cross
An undercover investigation into a beef ‘mega farm’ in Daventry, Northamptonshire supplying major supermarkets and sending 4,500 cows a year to slaughter, as well as Somerset rearing farm, Badgers Cross which raises beef and veal calves under 'Cattle Connect' for Waitrose. This is a UK-first and reveals the fate of bull calves who go on for rearing at so-called zero-grazing farm.
- Calves under a month old at Badgers Cross being roughly pushed around by workers, yelled and shouted at
- 23 Red Tractor and DEFRA guidelines breached at Berryfields
- Cows beaten with pipes and fists, kicked, had tails twisted, and one had a bucket thrown in his face causing him to slam onto the concrete floor
- Sick, lame and injured cows left to suffer in a filthy ‘hospital pen’
- Cows struggling to walk moved by workers with fists, yelling, swearing, and kicking through the crush and walkways
- Drone images showing the industrial scale of beef farming
Duck Slaughter
2020 - Gressingham Foods slaughterhouse
For the first time ever, Animal Justice Project placed cameras for 24 hours inside Gressingham Food’s huge slaughterhouse in Redgrave, Suffolk (the largest duck abattoir in the UK), This investigation inside the abattoir was featured in every major newspaper, reaching thousands of people and reveals mandatory CCTV and government audits inside UK slaughterhouses is failing to prevent animal cruelty and suffering.
- A staggering fifteen breaches of EU, UK government and Red Tractor guidelines in just 24 hours
- The brutal handling of birds and yanking them by their necks on shackles
- Shackling and involuntary inversion appeared to cause the ducks significant distress
- Workers argued and shouted at each other, even physically assaulted each other, whilst roughly shackling distressed and panicked birds
- Ducks left hanging for over 14 minutes - well over the maximum time of 2 minutes specified in both UK and EU legislation
- Ducks arrived dead in crates and one bird was covered in blood
Duck Farms
2019 & 2020 – Gressingham Foods duck farms
Animal Justice Project filmed for two months on Gressingham Foods duck farms in Thetford, Norfolk supplying Red Tractor Assured duck to Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco, Co-Op, ASDA and Morrisons.
- Barren sheds entirely void of any enrichment or open water, and housing up to 12,000 ducks
- Thousands of ducks in large windowless sheds with no water to bath or even preen themselves in
- Shackling and involuntary inversion appeared to cause the ducks significant distress
- Ducks arrived dead in crates and one bird was covered in blood
- Each duck was afforded just 2 foot square floor space
- Ducks and ducklings pedalling on their backs in clearly great distress
- Constant lighting for 47 hours
- Lame ducks were seen by workers and then ignored
- Workers roughly grabbed ducks by their necks, carried them through the sheds – still by their necks – then broke their necks and threw them onto the flock
Turkeys
2019 – Pastures Poultry organic farm and abattoir
Another ‘gold star’, high-end farm filmed at by Animal Justice Project. This time free-range turkeys in Northampton. Our investigation team uncovered:
- Turkeys being plucked alive
- Terrified chickens entering scalding tanks alive and flapping
- Guinea fowls’ feathers being ripped out whilst still conscious
- The violent handling of birds and yanking them by their necks on shackles
- Slaughter in full view of other birds waiting for their turn
Free-Range Broiler Chickens
2019 – RSPCA chicken farms
Hidden-camera footage reveals the horrible truth of what happens to RSPCA, ‘high-welfare’ chickens behind closed doors:
- Almost 500 chicks died in their first week
- A dilapidated, sparse and largely concrete 'range' for 'free-range' birds on the RSPCA-certified farm
- Kicking, throwing and snapping of the necks of baby chicks; and the leaving of one chick over eight hours to die
- Lame birds and dying birds left to suffer for days
- Workers breaking the necks of adult birds and throwing them convulsing on the ground to die or flap off
- A worker urinating into a bucket then throwing live but seriously impaired birds into it eight hours later
- Catching teams cursing, throwing, kicking and slamming birds into crates during catching for slaughter
DRONE INVESTIGATIONS
Animal Justice Project’s ‘eyes in the sky’ provide a new perspective on the devastating impact that animal agriculture has on animals, the environment, and rural communities.
Equipped with high-tech video cameras, our drones fly above farms, slaughterhouse and livestock markets, capturing the nightmarish scale of these facilities from above.
Equipped with high-tech video cameras, our drones fly above farms, slaughterhouse and livestock markets, capturing the nightmarish scale of these facilities from above.
"We have to see them, show their hidden reality and expose industry lies.”
Animal Justice Project Investigator
Animal Justice Project Investigator
18
Investigations released since 2019
1,866,027
Views on our videos in 2023
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