Forty chickens were bound and stuffed into the boot of a car yesterday, then left for more than three hours as the car's occupants attended an appointment at Hawke's Bay Hospital.
The four-door Honda saloon was later seen parked outside The Doctors in Hastings, with the chickens still inside, before it returned to a Cambridge Street address.
Police received calls from members of the public who claimed they could see chickens and blood through a crack in the boot of the car. Thirteen of the birds were found dead.
The chickens were purchased from a poultry farm in Fernhill for $1 each to be culled for eating.
"They were all alive when they were picked up, now half are dead and the other half are very distressed," Hastings Senior Constable Tim Rowe said.
"The chickens had been flexi-tied together, so some live chickens were tied to those which had suffocated."
It was clear the people who bought them did not care for their welfare, Mr Rowe said.
"I said to them, you wouldn't put your dog in the boot of the car, why would you do it with these chickens? They said 'but they are just chickens'."
Hastings SPCA animal welfare inspector Rachel Wenman said there was nothing wrong with buying or even killing the animals but there was an issue with the way they had been treated.
"If they had bought them and taken them straight home we would not be here.
"It's hard to see how the people who did this can look at the chickens and not see anything wrong with it."
An SPCA volunteer who did not want to be named said it was an appalling act of cruelty.
"Even people on death row don't get treated that bad."
Twenty-seven of the 40 chickens lived and have been taken to the Hastings animal haven to recover.
Ms Wenman said it was likely the SPCA would press charges but that would be a decision from head office in Auckland.
"For the meantime the chickens will be put into foster care and eventually be re-homed."
Mr Rowe said police would assist the SPCA should it prosecute.
"Putting two or three chickens in the boot is one thing, 40 is quite another," he said.
40 live chickens stuffed in boot
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