As an organization committed to ending factory farming, Compassion in World Farming takes a hard stance against force-feeding ducks and geese in order to fatten their livers to produce foie gras. Birds on foie gras factory farms suffer some of the cruelest, worst-of-the-worst practices in our current food and farming system.

For up to three long, gruesome weeks, waterfowl on foie gras factory farms experience near-constant physical and emotional trauma. Two to three times a day, in a process known as “gavaging,” a foot-long metal tube or plastic pipe is forcibly inserted into the animals’ mouths and down their esophagi, dumping massive quantities of high-fat corn mix directly into their stomachs. The size and frequency of these already abnormally large deposits only increase throughout the bird’s brief, horrific stay.

[Click here to see undercover footage from a foie gras factory farm in Europe.]

The result of this overtly cruel practice is the enlargement of a bird’s liver up to 10 times its natural size. This swelling is due to the sheer magnitude of forced fat intake, a disease veterinarians diagnose as hepatic lipidosis—and what the meat industry affectionately dubs “foie gras” (French for “fatty liver”). Along with the development of a painful disease, there are a number of other physical and emotional welfare consequences directly linked to the force-feeding of ducks and geese: esophageal rupture, broken bones, and respiratory infection among the most serious.