An animal welfare charity demonstrated outside TK Maxx in Hammersmith with 40 cuddly life-sized geese toys.

The Four Paws protest was called to object to the treatment of ducks and geese whose feathers are used to fill its duvets.

The 40 stuffed toys represent the 40 animals that the group claim are often tortured, live-plucked or force-fed for the production of one down-filled duvet.

It has worked with major UK retailers and convinced the likes of Debenhams, Argos, John Lewis , Next, The White Company and Dunelm to commit to implementing stricter standards to avoid cruelty in their bedding products.

Of those the group has targeted through its 40 Lives campaign, TK Maxx is the only company yet to agree to change its approach, leading to protesters gathering outside the store in King Street on Monday (April 3) afternoon.

The stuffed toys were seen carrying placards reading "Are you quackers", "Hands off my feather", "Don’t pluck me alive", "Go pluck yourself" and "Don’t ruffle my feathers".

An animal charity says ducks and geese whose down is used in bedding are oftern live-plucked and force fed

Four Paw wants the bedding industry to introduce far stricter standards for ensuring their down is cruelty-free, after identifying a number of failings in the existing policies of many of the major manufacturers and retailers.

It claims torturous practices are still present in the farming and production of down from geese and ducks, namely force-feeding associated with foie gras production and live-feather plucking for the down and feather industry.

A spokesman for Four Paws said: “We have been running the campaign for past few months against a number of manufacturers and retailers in the bed industry.

“We have targeted retailers that didn’t have policies which stopped cruel practices, and during the course of the campaign we’ve entered into discussion with a number of them, but we’re still waiting for TK Maxx to budge.

“We hope the goose protest raises public awareness and gets TK Maxx to follow what is becoming a trend in the industry.

Some of the stuffed toys from the 'geese protest'

“We got a good response from the protest. It's something people weren’t necessarily aware of, so there were a lot of opportunities to talk to people.

“It allowed us to initiate discussion with the public about what was going on and what the issues are. It was light hearted scene but it enabled us to talk about a very serious issue.”

TK Maxx has been approached for comment.

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