A Perdue chicken farmer who boldly went on-camera for a short documentary about his ailing chickens has already faced backlash from the poultry behemoth.
Craigs Watts, from North Carolina, has raised chickens for Perdue for over 20 years – but that run appears set to end after he appeared in a CompassionUSA documentary first made public on December 3.
The 22-year Perdue vet is not the first farmer contracted by the company to raise chickens to allow camera crews on his farm, but he is one of only a few to go on the record with the poor condition of his birds.
Perdue is the nation's third-largest poultry producer, when ranked by sales.
CompassionUSA made the short film to bring attention to industrial farming methods as part of it's Better Chicken initiative, which seeks to promote more humane methods of raising poultry meant for human consumption.
Footage of dead chicks, birds with broken limbs, struggling to breathe, and missing feathers on their underbellies led Perdue inspectors to arrive Wednesday at his farm citing multiple violations.
Watts insisted to veteran agriculture blogger Christopher Leonard that the move is in retaliation for showing his face on-screen and in a New York Times article released in tandem with the short film.
The inspectors performed an audit of his farm, which he said is usually a death sentence for chicken farmers leading to the termination of his contract.
"I just didn't expect it this quick," Watts said. "That's a potential contract-yanker."
A Perdue spokesperson shot down the claim to Leonard, saying the audit was a direct response to Watts' ailing and dying chickens.
"What we saw on the video was very concerning, suggesting to us that the birds were not well taken care of," spokeswoman Julie DeYoung told the blogger. "So it's very appropriate for us to go and see for ourselves what is going on."
Watts and DeYoung are at odds over several key scenes shown in the film.
He blames the poor conditions on Perdue business practices, she says the problems are entirely his fault.
From Leonard's post: "The disagreement highlights the fraught relationship between modern contract farmers and the nation's biggest meat companies. Farmers like Watts borrow millions of dollars to build large factory farms, but they never actually own the birds they raise.
"Instead, they sign a contract with companies like Perdue, which deliver the live birds and pay the farmer to raise them ... Farmers like Watts have little freedom in choosing how to raise their chickens, and they have no control over the kind of bird that is delivered to their farm.
"Chicken farmers live in perpetual fear that companies will cancel their contracts, so they rarely speak with reporters."
The results of the audit are not yet in, but DeYoung did acknowledge the stiffest penalty for failure includes a termination of the farmer's contract.
Watts, for his part, expressed little remorse in the footage.
"Everybody's got a tipping point. And I am just there."