December 1, 2013
NOW THAT THANKSGIVING AND BLACK FRIDAY ARE OVER … IT MAY BE A GOOD TIME TO KNOW WHERE THE TURKEY ON YOUR TABLE CAME FROM
Every year in the United States, almost 300 million turkeys are killed for their flesh. Virtually all spend their entire lives on factory farms and have no federal legal protection.
Turkeys raised on factory farms are hatched in large incubators and never see their mothers or feel the warmth of a nest. When they are only a few weeks old, they are moved into filthy, windowless sheds with thousands of other turkeys, where they will spend the rest of their lives.
To keep the birds from killing one another in such stressful, crowded conditions, parts of the turkeys’ toes and beaks are cut off, as are the males’ snoods. (The snood is the flap of skin under the chin.) All this is done without any pain relievers. Imagine having the skin under your chin chopped off with a pair of scissors.
Millions of turkeys don’t even make it past the first few weeks of life in a factory farm before succumbing to “starve-out,” a stress-induced condition that causes young birds to simply stop eating.
Turkeys are bred, drugged, and genetically manipulated to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible to increase profits. In 1970, the average live turkey raised for meat weighed 17 pounds. Today, he or she weighs 28 pounds.
According to one industry publication, modern turkeys grow so quickly that if a 7-pound human baby grew at the same rate, the infant would weigh 1,500 pounds at just 18 weeks of age. Turkeys are now so obese that they cannot reproduce naturally; instead, all the turkeys who are born in the United States today on factory farms are conceived through artificial insemination.
Their unnaturally large size also causes many turkeys to die from organ failure or heart attacks before they are even 6 months old. According to an investigative report in the Wall Street Journal on the miserable conditions on turkey farms, “It’s common in a rearing house to find a dead bird surrounded by four others whose hearts failed after they watched the first one ‘fall back and go into convulsions, with its wings flapping wildly.’”
Factory farm operators walk through the shed to kill the slow-growing turkeys (so that they don’t eat any more food), such as those who fall ill because of the filthy conditions or become crippled under their own weight.
12 Reasons You May Never Want To Eat Turkey Again
~~Newborn Turkeys Search And Call For Their Mothers, Never Get To Be With Them~~
Turkeys are very family oriented. In natural conditions, turkey hens are devoted mothers who care diligently for their babies. Young turkeys, known as poults, learn crucial survival information from their mother, including what to eat, how to avoid predators, the layout of the home range, and important social behaviors. But on commercial farms, turkeys are hatched in incubators and crammed into warehouses with thousands of other motherless poults. It is confusing and hard on baby turkeys to never know a mother figure. It is also very sad. Check out this amazing clip of a hatching newborn turkey immediately searching for, and bonding with, his adoptive mother—who just so happens to be a man.
~~Turkeys Love To Be Petted~~
Beatrice the turkey loves affection. Photo by Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary.
Many turkeys, even those who have known great cruelty at human hands, will happily sit for hours having their feathers stroked. Loving Beatrice, above, a former factory farm turkey rescued by Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, is a huge snugglebug despite having been mutilated by humans as a baby. And Clove the turkey hen (pictured below) loves to cuddle with her rescuers at Animal Place sanctuary.
~~Turkeys Form Deep Friendships And Emotional Bonds~~
~~Turkeys are Sexually Molested And Abused~~
Modern day turkeys have been bred to be so grotesquely large that they can’t even mate naturally. Commercial turkeys are “artificially inseminated”: the industry euphemism for roughly restraining female turkeys, turning them upside down, and violently shoving tubes or syringes of semen into their vaginas. To collect the semen, workers known as “milkers” restrain male turkeys and forcibly masturbate them until they ejaculate.
~~Young Turkeys Are Brutally Mutilated Without Painkillers~~
Debeaked turkey poults. Image courtesy of Farm Sanctuary.
The extreme and unnatural crowding of turkeys on commercial farms is highly stressful, and causes them to be abnormally aggressive. Rather than make improvements to the birds’ environment, producers instead subject turkey poults (baby turkeys) to excruciating mutilations without anesthetic, simply cutting off “non-essential” body parts that could inflict or sustain injury.
De-snooding involves cutting off the snood, the fleshy red protuberance that dangles over turkeys’ beaks and is used to attract mates. De-toeing, or toe-clipping, is a painful debilitation inflicted with shears or microwaves, and is practiced despite the fact that it is associated with lameness and higher early mortality. Debeaking is performed using sharp shears, a heated blade, or a high-voltage electrical current.
Turkeys’ beaks are loaded with sensory receptors, much like human fingertips, and this painful procedure severs and exposes nerves. Some turkeys starve to death before they are able to eat again; others die of shock on the spot.
~~Life On Factory Farms (Including Many “Free Range” Farms) Is Living Hell~~
Modern turkey farms, including many farms whose products are sold under “free range” labels (see Deciphering Humane Labels and Loopholes), crowd up to 75,000 individuals into a single shed, meaning each turkey is given as little as 2.5 square feet of space in which to move around. Turkeys can barely move past one another, and must wade through layers of excrement and urine, which causes painful ulcers on their feet and breasts.
The air in these sheds is so polluted with dust, pathogens and ammonia that most birds suffer from painful respiratory diseases and eye disorders, including swelling of the eyelids, discharge, clouding and ulceration of the cornea, and even blindness.
There is a high rate of viral and bacterial infections, and sick or injured individuals frequently languish unnoticed. When found, they are typically killed via “cervical dislocation or the crushing of the head or vertebrae by striking the birds against a wall or with an object.”
~~Domestic Turkeys Still Share Much In Common With Wild Turkeys~~
Wild turkey, wikimedia commons.
Much has been made by farmers and food writers (namely, those who profit from exploiting farmed animals) about the vast differences between the noble, intelligent, wild turkey, and domesticated turkeys on industrial farms — whom, we’re told, are stupid, clumsy, and so cognitively deficient they could never survive in the wild. In fact, domestic turkeys display the same instincts as their wild counterparts, and it is only because of frankensteinian genetic interference by humans that they cannot fulfill certain instinctive behaviors.
Domestic turkeys suffer much shorter lifespans than wild turkeys because selective breeding for rapid growth of breast tissue (“meat”) means their organs and skeletons cannot keep up with their outsized exteriors; rescued turkeys frequently die within the first couple of years because their hearts cannot produce enough oxygen for their unnaturally large bodies. Their heavy-chestedness is also why they cannot fly or mate naturally, and why they often move with a difficult waddle, many eventually succumbing to total lameness.
Domestic turkeys maintain complex vocabularies, social structures, cognitive abilities, and emotional lives. They are still closely related, genetically, psychologically, and neurobiologically, to their wild cousins. Whatever “deficiencies” they may exhibit by comparison are entirely the result of their ruthless manipulation by profiteering humans.
~~Turkeys Suffer Horribly During Transport And Slaughter~~
Nearly 46 million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving every year in the U.S. alone. Slaughtered between 4 to 6 months of age, turkeys suffer unspeakable cruelty during their final hours of life.
“Loading and transport to slaughter are extremely traumatic. “Catchers” enter the sheds in darkness to collect the birds as quickly as possible, grabbing them roughly by their ankles, carrying them upside down and stuffing them into crowded crates which are thrown onto flatbed trucks. In the process, many of the turkeys suffer broken wings and legs.
Turkey carcasses are often downgraded or condemned in post-slaughter processing as a result of bruises and injuries sustained during transport. In addition, birds are legally transported for up to 36 hours without food or water, in open-sided crates where they are exposed to weather extremes from scorching heat to freezing sub-zero temperatures. Many birds do not survive. In 2007, of the 260 million turkeys slaughtered in the U.S., an estimated 988,000–nearly 1 million birds–died during crating and transport to slaughter.”
~~Nearly 1 Million Turkeys are “Accidentally” Boiled Alive Every Year In U.S.~~
Nearly one million turkeys and chickens are boiled alive every year in the U.S. Photo courtesy of PETA.
According to a new article from The Washington Post, nearly 1 million chickens and turkeys are unintentionally boiled alive every year in U.S. slaughterhouses, where fast-moving lines often fail to kill the birds before they are dropped into the scalding tank.
~~“Humane” Turkey Slaughter Isn’t~~
When we have no need to kill animals for food, there’s no such thing as humane slaughter — just as there’s no such thing as humanely mugging someone in order to steal their sunglasses.
~~Compassion toward all animals doesn’t have to be taught; it is only untaught~~
Which lesson are you teaching your kids this Thanksgiving?
To honor their compassion?
Photo by Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary
Or to destroy it?
The Reuben R. Sallows Digital Library: “Killing turkey” by Reuben R. Sallows, Huron County, Ontario (Canada), 1912.
~~Delicious Plant-Based Turkey Alternatives Abound~~
Delicious vegan holiday main dish ideas. Collage: Ashley Capps.
From frozen faux-turkeys that taste like the real thing, to mouth-watering, protein-packed grain roasts, there are tons of tantalizing Turkey Alternatives that can take center stage at any Thanksgiving table. Whether you’re looking for store-bought, order-online, or make-your-own options, it’s easy and delicious to veganize your favorite holiday main dishes.
For full info – See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-cruelty-investigation/12-reasons-you-may-never-want-eat-turkey-again/#sthash.omvRF10V.dpuf
And: http://freefromharm.org/animal-cruelty-investigation/12-reasons-you-may-never-want-eat-turkey-again/
~~FROM THE FARM, THROUGH ALL THE PROCESSING, TO THIS~~
We ALL are ONE!!
Hidden Camera: Butterball Turkey Abuse (Mercy for Animals)
Published on Dec 15, 2012
~~WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES~~
Before carving into a Butterball turkey on Thanksgiving, everyone must watch this
video.
A new Mercy For Animals hidden-camera investigation gives a shocking look behind
the closed doors of Butterball factory farms—revealing the heartbreaking cruelty
and neglect animals face at the hands of the world’s largest turkey producer.
~~This is the ongoing culture of cruelty at Butterball~~
• workers kicking and stomping on birds, dragging them by their fragile wings and
necks, and maliciously throwing turkeys onto the ground or on top of other birds;
• birds suffering from serious untreated illnesses and injuries, including open sores,
infections, and broken bones
• workers grabbing birds by their wings or necks and violently slamming them into
tiny transport crates with no regard for their welfare.
Interesting website to visit: http://butterballabuse.com/
I’M NOT ADVOCATING FOR OTHERS TO BE OR BECOME VEGETARIANS.
INDIVIDUALS MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS.
I MERELY AM OFFERING INFORMATION.
I STRONGLY FEEL THAT ALL SHOULD DO AS THEY SEE FIT.
It Is What It Is 