Brian's Poultry Services Investigation

Statement of Whistleblower Sally Mitchell

On the evening of Monday, May 12, 2003, my boyfriend, Chad Haberstock, and I accepted positions working as “chicken catchers” for Brian’s Poultry Services (BriansPoultry.com), based in Mildmay, Ontario in Canada. We were hired almost immediately over the phone with no references and no questions asked. We had no idea what we were in for.

A company van picked us up at 6 p.m., and as we climbed inside with other employees who had been hired for the same position, it quickly became obvious that there would be no friends made here. No one was interested in learning our names, and if not for two boys who talked to us in the back of the van, we would not have understood what we would be doing as “catchers” that night. The boys told us that we would feel badly afterward and have trouble breathing but that we would “get used to it.”

When we arrived at the first farm, I learned that the chickens are kept in total darkness. The lights in the barn were turned up when we entered so that we could see to put down the gates that are used to catch the chickens. When that had been done, the lights were very slowly turned down again. Walking through thousands of chickens as the lights dimmed and the sound of electricity faded away made me think of the fear and confusion of gas chambers. It was like a bad dream.

We were informed that the first barn was a “two-leg barn,” meaning that we were allowed to carry only four birds at a time and that each one had to be carried by two legs. The heavy gates, which weighed approximately 10 pounds each, were thrown around the barn to trap the chickens so that they would be easier to catch. Even though this was supposed to be the barn where chickens were not hurt, the catchers threw the gates around without regard for the chickens’ safety, crushing and trapping many of them beneath the gates. If the gates were not even with the ground, the catchers would lean all their weight on the gates and force them to the floor, crushing the live chickens who were caught below. Walking across the barn from the gates to the door was insane. It was impossible not to crush chickens underfoot. It took so long for me to cross because, with every step, I felt crushing and heard screaming. I carefully tried to move the chickens out of my way, but other employees just ran from side to side as if they didn’t notice the sea of bodies under their feet.

When the doors of the barn were opened, the real horror began. A truck was backed up to the open doors, exposing these birds to the outside world for the first time. They panicked. There is no way to deny that those birds were terrified and confused. That was when I started feeling guilty. I looked at the birds and knew that it was the end for them—there was no escape. We began grabbing chickens and holding them upside-down by their legs, carrying two in each hand and giving them to “loaders” in the truck, who threw and slammed them into tiny transport crates. This process was brutal, and it’s amazing that any of the chickens were alive at that point. There were 7,000 chickens in the barn, and it took about an hour to load them into the truck. When we were finished, I couldn’t breathe, but I knew that we had another farm to go to.

Little did I know that things were about to get much worse. We were split into two teams, and as we approached the next barns, one of the workers started yelling, “I get the runts! I get the runts!” When I asked him what he meant, he said that, in order to get a higher weight in the truck, they wanted to load only the big chickens and kill the smaller ones. He explained how he smashed the skulls of the “runts” until they were dead. He was assigned to the other barn, so I did not have to witness this.

The next barn was absolute hell. You wouldn’t believe what it was like unless you were there. We had to wake 38,000 sleeping baby chickens and terrify and break them. In this barn, there were none of the restrictions of the first barn. We were told to pick up eight chickens at a time and to hold each one by one leg—four chickens in each hand. Chad told me that he could feel the chickens’ legs snap and pop when he handed them up to the loader on the truck. The chickens tried to huddle in groups, but occasionally, one would stray into the middle of the floor and get stepped on and kicked around. It broke my heart. I only worked a little while in this barn before I had to sit down because of the combination of exhaustion and emotional strain. I made eye contact with some of the young chickens, who were so little that they weren’t even clucking yet, just cheeping. It just killed me. They started huddling under me for safety when I knelt down. Some people think that chickens don’t have feelings, but it was perfectly clear how scared these animals were. It was absolute hell—there are no better words to describe that graphic scene. It was death. It was screaming babies with no one to help them. Worse, I knew that I was only seeing a very small percentage of the billions of chickens who are killed every year in the industry. I couldn’t do it anymore, so Chad and I both went and sat out for the last hour while the final truck was loaded.

I cried the whole way home. I only made it half of one night, but the biggest shock came when I realized that the catchers do this every day and have been doing it for years—some of them for their entire working lives. The brutality that these people inflict on animals shocked me. Ever since that day, my boyfriend and I have sworn off meat. Most people don’t know what happens to animals in the meat industry, but now, you know that there is a fate worse then death for these chickens—their journey to slaughter.