Kondrajec Panski (Poland) (AFP)

Like a Niagara of little balls of yellow feathers, thousands of chicks cascade down a treadmill. Twenty-four hours old, they weigh 40 grams and have 41 days to live, not one more, in a huge farm in central Poland.

Here, as elsewhere in the world, their destiny is all traced: bigger, they will be eaten.

Despite the growing number of animal welfare advocates, including in Poland, who sometimes manage to influence authorities and industry. As in New York, where the marketing of foie gras, resulting from the force-feeding of animals, has just been banned, or in France where the grinding of male chicks (not profitable) should be prohibited at the end of 2021.

- A white wave -

"At the end of six weeks, the chickens reach the weight of between 2.7 and 2.8 kilograms", explains to Andrzej Gontarski, owner of the farm of Kondrajec Panski, about 100 km north of Warsaw which has twelve hangars of this size.

By far, Poland has become in ten years the leading producer and the largest European exporter of poultry. In 2018, she produced more than one billion chickens and chickens, according to the Central Statistical Office. That's ten times more than in 2009.

Chicken has naturally become preferable to pork: the export market is unlimited for poultry, while pork is not allowed in many countries, including Muslims. In addition, the production cycle is shorter, the money invested is recovered quickly, after a dozen weeks.

Dressed in a white, sterile jumpsuit, Gontarski enters the huge henhouse, and the movement of anxious birds is reminiscent of a white wave.

- Short life -

Their short life will end at the huge slaughterhouse of the Polish group Cedrob in Ujazdowek, which employs 1,600 people and treats 750,000 chickens a day.

Suspended by the legs on a chain that advances without stopping, the chickens are first wet, so that the current passes more easily, then anesthetized and paralyzed by an electric shock.

A saw cuts his neck and it is thus, emptied of his blood that falls in a gutter, that the bird dies after 30 minutes.

Sprinkled with hot water to be more easily plucked by a machine with rubber fingers, it is then cooled to a temperature between 0 and 4 degrees for cutting.

Everything is automated and monitored by computers. Another machine packs the parts. They will be sold either fresh or frozen.

- Frankenstein chicken -

In Poland, animal welfare is defended notably by the association Otwarte Klatki (Open Cages).

It has launched a campaign called "Frankenkurczak" (Frankenpoulet, by reference to the artificial monster Frankenstein), denouncing the problems related to the rapid growth of chickens, genetically selected to achieve this effect.

"The belly of the bird is too big compared to its legs.It is common that the bones of the legs break, they do not support this weight," denounces Anna Izynska, spokeswoman for the association.

"Imagine a five-year-old child weighing 150 kilograms.When such a bird falls to the ground, he is not able to get up, often he dies there, deprived of food, deprived of water".

- Six new slaughterhouses -

Piotr Tarkowski, head of poultry sales abroad in a big Polish company, Agraimpex, believes that EU legislation defining breeding conditions could be further improved, for example by reducing the number of birds that can occupy the surface of the farm. one square meter in an industrial chicken coop.

1.8 billion chicks come out of their eggs under Poland's skies every year, tells

AFP Mariusz Paweska, head of a large hatchery in the region. Many are exported to Belarus and Ukraine in particular. But more than a billion will grow in Poland and chickens will be eaten locally, in Germany, Holland, South Africa or Hong Kong.

The industry continues to grow. "This year alone, we have seen six new slaughterhouses that can process more than 1.4 million chickens a day," says Piotr Tarkowski, whose employer, Agraimpex, exports poultry for more than 22 million euros.

Referring to unspecified non-tariff barriers protecting in particular the French or German markets, he states that "if the European market was completely free, the Polish chicken would have swept away Western competition".

© 2019 AFP