ANIMAL rights campaigners delivered a mock funeral wreath to a food company in Ilkley to highlight alleged cruelty to chickens.

Protesters marched through the town carrying cardboard tombstones reading 'R.I.P KFC chickens: Tortured and Abused' in a demonstration staged outside Chicken Kabins, the Ilkley office of the giant chain.

Eight members of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) took part in the demonstration on Monday.

They confronted KFC regional office manager Tony Hall at the Riddings Road office, handed him a leaflet and left the 'wreath'.

The Ilkley protest was part of an international campaign launched in January after the animal rights group claimed that almost two years of negotiation with KFC's parent company, Yum!Brands, had failed.

PETA claims to have already pressured McDonalds and Burger King into raising standards of animal welfare. Now the group is urging the public to lobby KFC to improve the treatment of birds used in its products.

PETA wants KFC to replace electric stunning and throat-slitting with gas killing, to phase out the forced rapid growth of chickens and to increase the space alloted per bird.

Campaign regional spokeswoman Nicola Drew claimed that the birds were reared in cruel and unnatural circumstances and were slaughtered inhumanely.

She said: "At the moment they don't have any space and cannot stretch a wing. They are drugged with growth promoters and they are slaughtered at two months old when they would naturally have about a ten-year lifespan."

She added that the British public was mostly unaware of the suffering undergone by the birds.

"Generally, the British public are compassionate towards animals, so if they were aware of the practices of what is a household name they would be appalled," said Ms Drew. "They would expect there to be a degree of humanity in the way they rear and slaughter these birds."

A spokesman for the fast food company told the Gazette: "KFC is committed to supplying its customers with 100 per cent whole chicken produced to the highest standards of quality, food safety and animal welfare.

"KFC GB Ltd buys the majority of its chickens from major UK poultry suppliers. All KFC GB suppliers meet or exceed EU and UK legislative requirements."