Chicks left to die in 81°F sweat boxes
MORE than 2,500 day-old chicks have died after being dumped by the road for more than five hours in one of the hottest weeks of the year.
The birds were found inside 33 neatly-stacked boxes at a lay-by in Chemical Lane, Longport.
When RSPCA inspectors arrived on the scene only 54 of the 2,590 pheasant and red legged partridge chicks were still alive. Several more have since died.
The grim discovery was made at a road leading to Queensway Industrial Estate at 3pm on Wednesday, a day in which temperatures in the city peaked at 27°C (81°F).
RSPCA inspector John Groarke, who had to count the birds, said: "This is a rare occasion, but I am very angry about it. The scale of it is quite horrifying.
"It was extremely distressing to open the boxes and find that most of the chicks had been overcome by the heat and to witness the strongest chicks crawling over the dead birds fighting to survive.
"To me it would appear to be an act of sheer laziness where someone has got out of a vehicle and neatly stacked these boxes in direct sunlight and drove off leaving the birds to suffer a horrendous death."
Boxes that the chicks were packed into were fit for transportation purposes, although too many had been squeezed in. The RSPCA has launched an investigation into the incident.
Mr Groarke said: "It is also possible that someone had just bought the chicks at market and then had second thoughts, or possibly the chicks were dying in the heat while being transported and the delivery driver decided to dump them.
"Whatever the reason, these birds didn't stand a chance."
Examinations by a vet showed the chicks had been alive earlier that day and an eyewitness has since come forward to say he saw the boxes in the lay-by at around 10am. Vets later put 22 chicks to sleep, with the remaining 32 taken to the RSPCA's Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Nantwich. A further 21 have since died.
Now the remaining 11, all thought to be pheasants, are being kept in an incubator to keep them cool.
Andrew Kelly, manager of the centre, said: "We have had to rehydrate the chicks and now we are trying to keep them at the right temperature and feed them good quality seeds and food."
If they survive, the chicks will be kept at the centre for six to eight weeks, after which they should be able to be released into the wild.
Anyone with information is urged to call the RSPCA national cruelty and advice line on 0300 1234 999. Calls will be treated in confidence.
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