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KITCHENER — An animal rights group has released undercover video showing alleged abuse of chicks before they're euthanized at a Maple Leaf Foods hatchery.

Maple Leaf says a third-party veterinarian concluded there is little on the video that constitutes abuse.

The video from Mercy For Animals Canada comes six weeks after the group released video shot at a turkey farm in Bright owned by Kitchener-based Hybrid Turkeys.

The latest video, taken at the Horizon Poultry hatchery in Hanover owned by Maple Leaf, shows "shocking abuse" of sick or injured birds, Anna Pippus, director of legal advocacy for Mercy For Animals, said in an interview Tuesday.

"We documented chicks flung by their wings and slammed into metal dividers, live chicks sent through a hot washing machine to be scalded alive and drowned, chicks shoved into overloaded maceration machines and ground up alive, and sick and injured animals, deprived of proper veterinary care, being discarded like trash."

When the undercover Mercy For Animals worker asks how chicks die in a hot tray-washing machine, an employee chuckles and says: "They boil! I have no sympathy for them anymore."

That employee has been suspended without pay, Maple Leaf spokesperson Dave Bauer said Tuesday. The company has launched a full investigation.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy for animal abuse," Bauer said.

He said an independent veterinarian, with a master's degree from the University of Guelph, viewed the video and found "no significant" animal rights abuses. The main concerns were the callous remarks from the employee and the fact live birds went through the tray washer.

"We have taken corrective actions" to fix the washer issue, Bauer said. "We are open to continuous improvement always."

Ben Brooks, general manager of Maple Leaf poultry operations, said in a statement on the company's website: "Animal welfare guides all of our operating procedures and is a central facet of training in any facility that has animals under its care.

"All our operations are required to undergo comprehensive annual third-party animal welfare audits, conducted by certified PAACO auditors (Professional Animal Auditors Certification Organization). These third-party auditors have open access to our facilities and the freedom to interview any of our employees as part of the audit process.

"To our knowledge, there are few other hatcheries in Canada that do this."

The Hanover video was shot over six weeks by a Mercy For Animals staffer who got a job at Horizon.

The hatchery is one of four owned by Toronto-based Maple Leaf, Pippus said. One is in New Hamburg.

Maple Leaf owns the sprawling former Schneiders meat processing plant on Courtland Avenue in Kitchener. The plant is slated to close later this year.

Pippus said the Hanover hatchery deals with tens of thousands of chicks a day. Some of them get injured from machines that break open the eggs, the commentator on the video says.

"These chicks are born into an industrial hatchery, which causes stress, fear and pain," Pippus said, adding they should be "raised under the nurturing and protective watch of their mothers. Instead, these chicks are being thrown, dropped, scalded in hot water, drowned and ground up alive.

"And, shockingly, grinding chicks alive is standard and acceptable in the poultry industry."

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Pippus said the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is investigating the Hanover video. The OSCPA and the Ontario Provincial Police are also investigating the Hybrid Turkeys video, which shows workers trying to euthanize birds by clubbing, kicking and swinging a shovel at them.

Pippus said her group has not asked the OPP to probe the Hanover video.

"Much of it is simply standard practice," she said of what the video shows. "There may be regulatory breaches, but sadly this type of treatment doesn't rise to the level of criminal cruelty."

Some parts of the video do show illegal practices, Pippus said.

"We documented chicks being roughly tumbled into the macerator, overloaded and crushed before being ground up alive," she said. "In addition, it is a violation of the law to send live animals through industrial washing machines to be scalded alive and drowned and to fling chicks and slam them into metal dividers."

Maple Leaf said it's hard to be perfect.

"All the training, documentation, scrutiny, auditing and verification we have in place is to establish a culture and supporting practices that uphold high standards of animal welfare," Brooks said in the statement.

"But no workplace environment is 100 per cent risk-free and we value learning that allows us to constantly improve. We are reviewing all of our protocols at this facility with our people and will take immediate action to ensure we follow the best possible standard of animal care."

Maple Leaf's decision to suspend an employee without pay is "too little, too late," Pippus said.

Pippus wants food producers to live-stream video to the internet.

"If the industry has nothing to hide, they should show the public that they're taking care of their animals," she said. "The public has a right to see how their food is being produced."

Live-steaming to the internet has been endorsed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, Pippus said.

She said Mercy For Animals, based in Toronto, plans to release video from other facilities later this year.