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A disturbing animal rights video allegedly shows workers at a foie gras factory throwing live ducklings into an industrial mincer.

According to a report by Newsweek, the clip illustrates the fate of as many as 40 million female ducks a year.

Only male ducks are kept as they gain weight faster than their female counterparts.

They are then used to make the controversial foodstuff while the remains of female ducklings are later used in cat food, fertilisers and in the pharmaceutical industry.

(Image: Youtube / Luka Atheris)

The video was shot by French animal protection group L214 on an unidentified foie gras farm in Landes, in the south west of the country.

It shows five workers sorting through thousands of fluffy ducklings, throwing female birds into a large metal cylinder.

The defenceless animals are barely a couple of days old and can be heard squeaking throughout their ordeal.

After being discarded, the ducklings appear to be dropped onto a second conveyor belt which allegedly takes them to their gruesome death.

The process of obtaining foie gras is so cruel its ­production has been banned in Britain - but imports from France and other countries are not controlled.

Every year 38 million ducks and geese are killed in France to make the delicacy. About a million birds die in the force-feeding process. Only males are used.

Females, which do not put on weight so fast, are typically 'destroyed' at a day old by being dropped into electric mincers.

France is by far the world’s largest producer and consumer of foie gras, which by law can only have that definition if force-feeding is used.

But small producers in other countries – amid growing fury over the cruel methods – let birds eat freely before killing them when their livers are naturally bigger.

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In November last year the L214 campaign group was part of an investigation into Ernest Soulard - a company which supplied Gordon Ramsay with foie gras.

Ducks were filmed crammed into tiny cages, caked in filth, riddled with sores and in agony from broken beaks and wings.

Campaigners branded the horrific conditions the “worst ever seen” after being shown the pictures of shocking cruelty.

Following the investigation Ramsay and a number of other well-known chefs stopped all purchasing from the French firm.