A judge has found Maple Lodge Farms guilty of violating federal animal health regulations after more than 1,500 chickens froze to death in severe winter weather en route to the Brampton-based processing plant.

The two convictions are just a fraction of the outstanding 58 criminal charges against the company, Canada's largest independent chicken processor.

Justice N. S. Kastner delivered the verdict Friday, citing two cases where scores of chickens experienced “undue suffering” during winter trips from two Ontario farms to the Brampton facility.

Animal rights activists sat anxiously in the courtroom as the judge recounted the incidents. After a 90-minute trip from a Moorefield farm on Feb. 23, 2009, 1,181 spent hens out of 10,944 were found dead in their crates.

Spent hens are nearly featherless after a lifetime of laying eggs, making them especially vulnerable to the cold.

The hens waited in temperatures between -9 and -16C as the driver loaded them into the truck.

“The driver … was instructed to load the birds, and notwithstanding the weather, he did so, regardless of the condition of the hens,” the judge said.

A similar case occurred the previous winter: 711 chickens out of 9,576 were classified as “dead on arrival” when they reached the plant “on or about" Dec. 30 and Dec. 31, 2008, court documents show.

Icy crates filled with dead, wet chickens were pulled from the truck, which let in cold gusts as it sped down the highway en route to Brampton.

“Wet birds, whether actually frozen or not, are unable to sustain their body temperatures for the reasons given by the veterinary evidence,” the judge wrote in the ruling.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which has inspection agents at the Brampton facility, laid the charges in 2008 and 2009.

But the legal wrangling is far from over. The two cases were chosen as examples to help the judge guide the outstanding 58 charges against the company.

It has yet to be decided whether the 58 charges will be tried case by case or if the company will reach a separate settlement.

The judge offered time for both the Crown and the company to make submissions regarding a penalty for the two convictions.

Friday’s ruling has shone a spotlight through the ethical holes in the poultry industry, said Liz White, director of Animal Alliance Canada.

“I don’t think I could have written it better myself,” said White, a vegetarian who was in court every day of the case.

“I was very, very pleased by the fact that she paid so much attention to the very real problems that exist in the industry.”

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White described chicken production as a “just-in-time” model that rushes to get from the farm to the deli, often cutting corners on animal wellbeing.

“What’s interesting is that most people don’t give these animals a lot of consideration,” she said.

Maple Lodge Farms is Canada’s largest independent poultry company and sells sandwich meat, chicken bacon, hot dogs and halal meats.