Video show live chicks being tossed into grinder

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An animal-rights group publicized a video Tuesday showing unwanted chicks being tossed alive into a grinder at an Iowa plant and accused egg hatcheries of being “perhaps the cruelest industry” in the world.

The undercover video was shot by Chicago-based Mercy for Animals at a hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. The video was first obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

“We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable?” asked Nathan Runkle, the group’s executive director, at a news conference in Des Moines.

The group said that tossing male chicks, which have little value because they can’t lay eggs or be raised quickly enough to be profitable for meat, into grinders is common industry practice. United Egg Producers, a trade group for U.S. egg farmers, confirmed that.

The hatchery is owned by West Des Moines-based Hy-Line North America.

The video, shot with a hidden camera and microphone by a Mercy for Animals employee who got a job at the plant, shows a Hy-Line worker sorting through a conveyor belt of chirping chicks, flipping some of them into a chute.

These chicks, which a narrator says are males, are then shown being dropped alive into a grinding machine.

Company spokesman Tom Jorgensen said Tuesday an investigation was continuing, and once it’s completed the company would release more information.