Ducks used in Gordon Ramsay's foie gras dishes suffer horrific cruelty before being killed. One campaigner said: "This is torture"

Crammed into tiny cages, caked in filth, riddled with sores and in agony from broken beaks and wings, these are the ducks used to make foie gras at Gordon Ramsay's restaurants.

Campaigners last night branded the horrific conditions the "worst ever seen" after being shown the pictures of shocking cruelty at plants that supply the celebrity chef with the posh dish.

Ducks lie dead and dying, many have painful eye injuries and abscesses and all are force-fed grain through a tube to make their livers 10 times the normal size during a two-week ordeal in a ­windowless shed before they are slaughtered.

In one pitiful scene, an exhausted and clearly distressed bird can be seen on its side with its tongue hanging from its beak. More…

Foie gras - French for "fatty liver" - is the diseased and enlarged liver of a duck or goose, produced through force feeding. The Animal Protection & Rescue League has investigated all three US foie gras farms and several in France and found rampant cruelty to be the norm. Compassion Over Killing sent an investigator to the largest US farm, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, on a guided tour with a hidden camera and also witnessed the standard cruelty that is required for foie gras production.

Diseased, force-fed liver, left. Normal liver, right.

Two to three times a day, a worker grabs each bird, shoves a long, thick metal tube all the way down his throat, and an air pump shoots up to two pounds of corn mush into his esophagus. The industry always refers to the dry weight of the feed, which is about one pound per feeding. Adding oil and water doubles this weight, making it 20-30% of the bird's healthy body weight. Picture 30 one pound boxes of dry pasta and then add water. This is proportionally how much a 150 pound human would be force fed using this formula.

A duck's liver naturally weighs around 50 grams. However, to qualify as foie gras, the industry's own regulations require ducks' livers to weigh an absolute minimum of 300 grams.

The vast amounts of feed pumped down the ducks' throats causes enormous internal pressure, and the pipe sometimes punctures the esophagus, causing many to die from choking on the blood that fills their lungs. Some birds literally burst, choke to death on their own vomit, or become so weak that they are unable to fend off rats from eating them alive. More…

The animals have no natural light and can barely move

• Foie gras off the menu? French farmers admit they might have gone 'too far' in their attempts to produce the fatty goose and duck liver delicacy, The Guardian, 12/13

  The appeal came as farmers producing the traditional French delicacy issued an astonishing mea culpa over the way the fatty goose and duck liver is produced.
  
  It also followed the decision by two high-profile chefs either side of the Channel—Gordon Ramsay in the UK and Joël Robuchon in France—to drop their foie gras supplier after the publication of shocking photographs showing the extent of suffering endured by the birds.
  
  Cifog, the body representing French foie gras producers, has admitted that farmers may have "gone a little too far".
  
  Spokeswoman Marie Pierre Pe said producers were determined to be more open and transparent about the most controversial aspect of foie gras production, the gavage, or force-feeding, of ducks and geese. This is most often done by pushing a tube down the bird's throat and pumping a grain mix into the stomach.
  
  "Of course gavage is not very romantic and so we avoided talking about it. But now we are trying to explain it more and more," Pe said. "In the 1980s about 30% to 35% of foie gras was coming from eastern Europe and we had to improve production to be more competitive, but perhaps we've gone too far," she added.
  
  Sébastien Arsac of the L214 Ethics and Animals association, which runs a Stop Gavage campaign, said most French foie gras production is now industrial not traditional. France produces and consumes 75% of the world's foie gras.
  
  "We would like chefs to come up with a new French gastronomy not based on the suffering and ill-treatment of animals," Arsac said. "It's hard to change attitudes because people see foie gras as something French and traditional, but we are seeing a slow change and people are moving away from this."
  
  L214, which derives its name from a law in the French rural code, says a survey it commissioned in 2009 showed 18% of French consumers said they would refuse to buy foie gras on the grounds of animal cruelty. This has now risen to 29%, it said. More…



• Amazon agrees to stop selling foie gras on UK website after bowing to pressure from animal welfare campaigners, Daily Mail, UK, 10/2013

  Amazon has bowed to pressure from animal welfare campaigners and decided to stop selling 'cruel' foie gras on its British website.
  
  The product, which comes from ducks and geese that are force fed to make their livers grow to a large an unnatural size, has been added to a list of prohibited items.
  
  It is highly prized by some food lovers and celebrity chefs, such as Gordon Ramsay, who have included it on their menus for many years. More…



• California ban on foie gras to remain, court rules, The Guardian, 8/2013

  A federal appeals court has ruled California can keep in place its ban on selling foie gras.
  
  A Los Angeles court will still hear the case against the ban, but in its decision Friday, the ninth US circuit court of appeals expressed doubt opponents of the law would be successful.
  
  The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling maintaining the ban while the case plays out.
  
  The law bars state farmers from force-feeding ducks with a tube, the procedure used to produce foie gras. It also bans sales of the delicacy.
  
  The legislature concluded tube-feeding ducks to engorge their livers is cruel. More…

• The Truth About Foie Gras, Farm Sanctuary, 2/2014.

  On July 1, 2012, after an eight-year waiting period, California became the first U.S. state to outlaw the production of foie gras and the only place in the world where its sale is illegal. This development was a milestone for Farm Sanctuary and our allies; we have been fighting to draw attention to the horrible abuse involved in foie gras production for decades.
  
  French for "fatty liver," foie gras is the diseased, fat-engorged liver of a duck or goose. Foie gras producers force-feed their birds large quantities of corn and fat by thrusting a metal tube down their throats and pumping meal directly into their stomachs two to three times a day for several weeks. At the end of this period, with livers swollen eight to ten times the normal size, the birds who have not already died from collateral injuries or ailments are slaughtered.
  
  We sat down with Senior Policy Director Bruce Friedrich and National Shelter Director Susie Coston to find out the essential information about the industry, its victims and survivors, and the progress we’re making to end this incredibly cruel practice. In Part 1, Bruce fills us in on the issues. More…



• Stop Force Feeding
  Two to three times a day, a worker grabs each bird, shoves a long, thick metal tube all the way down his throat, and an air pump shoots up to two pounds of corn mush into his esophagus. The industry always refers to the dry weight of the feed, which is about one pound per feeding. Adding oil and water doubles this weight, making it 20-30% of the bird's healthy body weight. Picture 30 one pound boxes of dry pasta and then add water. This is proportionally how much a 150 pound human would be force fed using this formula.
  
  A duck's liver naturally weighs around 50 grams. However, to qualify as foie gras, the industry's own regulations require ducks' livers to weigh an absolute minimum of 300 grams. More…