Viva! - Press Release Index

Viva!
8 York Court
Wilder Street
Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000
Fax: 0117 924 4646

email:
info@viva.org.uk

December 1999

Ducks out of Water - PRESS BRIEFING

A Viva! campaign against duck factory farming

Secrecy shrouds the expanding duck industry and obtaining information is difficult. Even the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries & Food (MAFF) pleads commercial confidentiality and refuses to answer basic queries about duck welfare. As a consequence, we have had to investigate conditions without any governmental or industry co-operation. Despite this, we have established sufficient information to make this report extremely disturbing.

Today's duck breeding and rearing methods are as cruel and oppressive as those adopted by the post-war chicken and turkey industries. Ducks have joined the ranks of the factory-farmed animal machines. The expansion of the industry is being encouraged just when the appalling welfare conditions and threats to human health caused by intensive animal rearing is provoking international concern. MAFF’s silent complicity is quite extraordinary.

Duck Types
All farmed (domestic) ducks originate from the Mallard (Anas Platyrhynchos), with the exception of the Muscovy (Cairina Moschata), which has its origins in South America. Farmed ducks are therefore broadly divided into these two types.

Conditions
Intensive sheds house up to 10,000 ducks in one 'flock' and lighting may be both dim and almost constant. Night-time rest can be as short as one hour. Straw, quickly sodden by faeces, must be added to frequently in order to control the high levels of ammonia and to prevent the birds from developing ulcerated feet and legs. Breeding, feed and conditions force birds to grow unnaturally fast. Slaughter is at just seven or eight weeks old. (A duck’s natural life span is 15 years.)

Although wire flooring is not used in the UK, imported duck meat is from birds almost certainly reared on wire. Echoes of the battery cage industry can be heard in the claims that wire flooring improves hygiene. As with any uneven surface, it can result in uncontrolled slipping, strains on legs and joints, leg injuries and joint deformation.

The lives of these essentially aquatic birds consist of pushing their way through the mass of other birds to avail themselves of pelleted food and shallow drinking water points. They can never swim. Webbed feet, evolved for swimming, and bills brilliantly designed to sieve food particles from rivers and ponds, are both redundant. In the pursuit of profit, the industry has entirely overlooked duck welfare.

Egg-laying breeding stock and grandparent stock - the gene pool - live for a year or more, also in conditions which denies them any ability to fulfil their natural instincts.

Lack of Water
UK producers do not supply any intensively-reared ducks with water for swimming and often they are unable even to immerse their heads. Water is limited solely to drinking points in all intensive duck production. In view of the aquatic nature of all ducks and their need for water to remain healthy, this deprivation represents a serious welfare insult. MAFF states that if ducks cannot immerse their heads “their eyes seem to get scaly and crusty and, in extreme cases, blindness may follow.” One producer, Green Label Foods, even includes an enzyme in the ducks food to reduce the amount of water they drink.

Beak Mutilation
The Muscovy's beak is sharp, unlike the domestic duck's, and can inflict serious injury. It is also richly innervated (supplied with nerves) and very well endowed with sensory receptors. Muscovies are widely farmed in Europe and by at least one UK company. Bill (beak) trimming is common and is carried out in the UK by Kerry Foods, despite research showing that life-long pain can result. It is done to prevent feather pulling, which is itself a direct result of factory farm conditions.

Size of Duck Industry
In the UK, ducks represent a minor sector of the poultry industry. About 18 million ducks will be slaughtered in 1999. On the basis of historic MAFF information, we believe that 90 per cent are intensively reared and 10 per cent free range.

Slaughter
There are 16 UK slaughterhouses licensed to kill ducks, most of which are small. The Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) will not disclose their names and addresses because of ‘commercial sensitivity’. Birds are mostly killed by throat cutting following electrical stunning by head immersion in an electrically-charged water bath. However, ducks are known to ‘swan neck’ - raising their heads when entering the waterbath so avoiding full immersion. The Scientific Veterinary Committee of the EU has expressed its concerns that they may avoid the waterbath completely. When that happens, they are fully conscious during the process of having their throats cut and bleeding to death.

Legal Position
The European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes concerning Ducks, adopted June 1999 and ratified by the UK, states that all breeds of duck retain “many biological characteristics of their wild ancestors” and agrees that the Mallard is largely aquatic. Important elements, it says, include bathing, immersing the head and wings and shaking water over the body. "The design, construction and maintenance of enclosures, buildings and equipment for ducks shall be such that they allow the fulfilment of essential biological requirements of ducks, in particular in respect of water and the maintenance of good health..." This does not happen under intensive rearing conditions.

Duck suppliers
The following supply UK duck: ASDA, Budgens, Co-op, Iceland, Kwik Save, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury’s, Somerfield Stores and Waitrose. Harrods supply UK Mallards and French Barbary ducks. Tesco will not name its suppliers but sells UK Mallards and Barbary ducks from more than one country. Marks & Spencer will also not name its suppliers but they include both UK and French.

Some intensive duck meat producers:

Cherry Valley Farms Ltd., Rothwell, Market Rasen, Lincs

World leaders who sell13 million Mallard-type ducks in the UK annually and export chicks and breeding stock worldwide. It claims that its genetic research has involved more experiments in the past ten years than the rest of the world put together. As many as 85,000 birds are looked after by just one person on some units.

Telmara Farms Ltd., Great Dunmow, Essex.

Produce 130,000 Mallard-type ducks annually on littered concrete floors. The only access to water is in bell drinkers.

Green Label Foods, Loomswood Farm, Debach, Suffolk

A family business which sold a million Mallard-type processed birds in 1996 and plans to kill 1.5 million in the year 2000. They sell to Sainsbury’s, Harrods and caterers.

Undercover filming
Viva! filmed at a Green Label unit and Grange Farm, Tannington, Suffolk on several occasions in 1999. We recorded many instances of poor duck welfare including dead, dying, sick and injured birds. The investigator knelt on the straw at several points and discovered it was soaking wet with excreta. The noise of thousands of ducks and ventilation systems was constant and deafeningly loud. We took still pictures of bins full of dead ducklings.

In contrast, footage of two farmed ducklings which were given to Viva!, shows them exhibiting entirely different behaviour to similar birds in the intensive sheds. Most importantly, it reveals the fundamental importance of water to everything the birds do.

Fully referenced copies of Viva!’s 52-page Ducks out of Water report are available from Viva!. Video footage and still pictures are also available.

Contact Juliet Gellatley or Tony Wardle on: 0117 944 1000.



Viva! 8 York Court Wilder Street Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000 Fax: 0117 924 4646 email: info@viva.org.uk	December 1999 Ducks out of Water - PRESS BRIEFING A Viva! campaign against duck factory farming Secrecy shrouds the expanding duck industry and obtaining information is difficult. Even the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries & Food (MAFF) pleads commercial confidentiality and refuses to answer basic queries about duck welfare. As a consequence, we have had to investigate conditions without any governmental or industry co-operation. Despite this, we have established sufficient information to make this report extremely disturbing. Today's duck breeding and rearing methods are as cruel and oppressive as those adopted by the post-war chicken and turkey industries. Ducks have joined the ranks of the factory-farmed animal machines. The expansion of the industry is being encouraged just when the appalling welfare conditions and threats to human health caused by intensive animal rearing is provoking international concern. MAFF’s silent complicity is quite extraordinary. Duck Types All farmed (domestic) ducks originate from the Mallard (Anas Platyrhynchos), with the exception of the Muscovy (Cairina Moschata), which has its origins in South America. Farmed ducks are therefore broadly divided into these two types. Conditions Intensive sheds house up to 10,000 ducks in one 'flock' and lighting may be both dim and almost constant. Night-time rest can be as short as one hour. Straw, quickly sodden by faeces, must be added to frequently in order to control the high levels of ammonia and to prevent the birds from developing ulcerated feet and legs. Breeding, feed and conditions force birds to grow unnaturally fast. Slaughter is at just seven or eight weeks old. (A duck’s natural life span is 15 years.) Although wire flooring is not used in the UK, imported duck meat is from birds almost certainly reared on wire. Echoes of the battery cage industry can be heard in the claims that wire flooring improves hygiene. As with any uneven surface, it can result in uncontrolled slipping, strains on legs and joints, leg injuries and joint deformation. The lives of these essentially aquatic birds consist of pushing their way through the mass of other birds to avail themselves of pelleted food and shallow drinking water points. They can never swim. Webbed feet, evolved for swimming, and bills brilliantly designed to sieve food particles from rivers and ponds, are both redundant. In the pursuit of profit, the industry has entirely overlooked duck welfare. Egg-laying breeding stock and grandparent stock - the gene pool - live for a year or more, also in conditions which denies them any ability to fulfil their natural instincts. Lack of Water UK producers do not supply any intensively-reared ducks with water for swimming and often they are unable even to immerse their heads. Water is limited solely to drinking points in all intensive duck production. In view of the aquatic nature of all ducks and their need for water to remain healthy, this deprivation represents a serious welfare insult. MAFF states that if ducks cannot immerse their heads “their eyes seem to get scaly and crusty and, in extreme cases, blindness may follow.” One producer, Green Label Foods, even includes an enzyme in the ducks food to reduce the amount of water they drink. Beak Mutilation The Muscovy's beak is sharp, unlike the domestic duck's, and can inflict serious injury. It is also richly innervated (supplied with nerves) and very well endowed with sensory receptors. Muscovies are widely farmed in Europe and by at least one UK company. Bill (beak) trimming is common and is carried out in the UK by Kerry Foods, despite research showing that life-long pain can result. It is done to prevent feather pulling, which is itself a direct result of factory farm conditions. Size of Duck Industry In the UK, ducks represent a minor sector of the poultry industry. About 18 million ducks will be slaughtered in 1999. On the basis of historic MAFF information, we believe that 90 per cent are intensively reared and 10 per cent free range. Slaughter There are 16 UK slaughterhouses licensed to kill ducks, most of which are small. The Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) will not disclose their names and addresses because of ‘commercial sensitivity’. Birds are mostly killed by throat cutting following electrical stunning by head immersion in an electrically-charged water bath. However, ducks are known to ‘swan neck’ - raising their heads when entering the waterbath so avoiding full immersion. The Scientific Veterinary Committee of the EU has expressed its concerns that they may avoid the waterbath completely. When that happens, they are fully conscious during the process of having their throats cut and bleeding to death. Legal Position The European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes concerning Ducks, adopted June 1999 and ratified by the UK, states that all breeds of duck retain “many biological characteristics of their wild ancestors” and agrees that the Mallard is largely aquatic. Important elements, it says, include bathing, immersing the head and wings and shaking water over the body. "The design, construction and maintenance of enclosures, buildings and equipment for ducks shall be such that they allow the fulfilment of essential biological requirements of ducks, in particular in respect of water and the maintenance of good health..." This does not happen under intensive rearing conditions. Duck suppliers The following supply UK duck: ASDA, Budgens, Co-op, Iceland, Kwik Save, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury’s, Somerfield Stores and Waitrose. Harrods supply UK Mallards and French Barbary ducks. Tesco will not name its suppliers but sells UK Mallards and Barbary ducks from more than one country. Marks & Spencer will also not name its suppliers but they include both UK and French. Some intensive duck meat producers: Cherry Valley Farms Ltd., Rothwell, Market Rasen, Lincs World leaders who sell13 million Mallard-type ducks in the UK annually and export chicks and breeding stock worldwide. It claims that its genetic research has involved more experiments in the past ten years than the rest of the world put together. As many as 85,000 birds are looked after by just one person on some units. Telmara Farms Ltd., Great Dunmow, Essex. Produce 130,000 Mallard-type ducks annually on littered concrete floors. The only access to water is in bell drinkers. Green Label Foods, Loomswood Farm, Debach, Suffolk A family business which sold a million Mallard-type processed birds in 1996 and plans to kill 1.5 million in the year 2000. They sell to Sainsbury’s, Harrods and caterers. Undercover filming Viva! filmed at a Green Label unit and Grange Farm, Tannington, Suffolk on several occasions in 1999. We recorded many instances of poor duck welfare including dead, dying, sick and injured birds. The investigator knelt on the straw at several points and discovered it was soaking wet with excreta. The noise of thousands of ducks and ventilation systems was constant and deafeningly loud. We took still pictures of bins full of dead ducklings. In contrast, footage of two farmed ducklings which were given to Viva!, shows them exhibiting entirely different behaviour to similar birds in the intensive sheds. Most importantly, it reveals the fundamental importance of water to everything the birds do. Fully referenced copies of Viva!’s 52-page Ducks out of Water report are available from Viva!. Video footage and still pictures are also available. Contact Juliet Gellatley or Tony Wardle on: 0117 944 1000.