Slaughter

Revelation about the slaughter process

10 billion per year in the U.S. killed for food consumption. The average American consumes 25 animals per year.

To meet the demands of the Standard American Diet, 1,000,000 animals are slaughtered every hour in the U.S.

Slaughterhouses are massive factories where as many as 24,000 animals a day are killed and processed.

Animals in slaughterhouses can smell the stench, hear the screams, and often see the slaughter of those before them.

Workers are required to kill as many as 1,100 animals an hour and resort to brutal animal handling techniques to keep the line running smoothly and maintain their jobs. One minute of downtime costs $500 in lost revenue.

The pressure to maximize profits at the plants is such that plant managers deliberately keep the voltage low on stunning devices to avoid burning meat, resulting in animals who are still alive as they are processed through the line.

High-speed disassembly lines give workers only a few seconds to stun or bleed an animal; when they miss, live animals continue down the line for scalding, beheading, or gutting.

The slaughter line does not stop for anything - not for injured workers, not for contaminated meat, and least of all not for slow or injured animals.

Cattle are frequently skinned and dismembered while still alive and conscious.

Live pigs are routinely immersed and dragged through vats of scalding water.

Animals are often trucked over hundreds of miles in bitter winter weather, only to arrive at the slaughterhouses frozen to the truck's sides. Workers literally rip them from the trucks, leaving chunks of flesh behind.

Live, disabled animals are often buried under piles of dead ones in the rendering areas of the plants. In these cases animals are ground up alive.

The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978 requires that all animals be rendered unconscious with just one application of an effective stunning device by a trained person before being shackled and hoisted up on the line. . It also requires that, once stunned, animals must remain in a state of complete unconsciousness throughout the butchering processes.

Captive-bolt stunning: Typically used for cattle - A pistol is set against the animal's head and a metal rod is thrust into the brain. Shooting a struggling animal is difficult, and the bolt often misses the mark or is not of sufficient length to cause unconsciousness, thereby injuring the animal and causing tremendous pain. ( Meat and Poultry, Sep 87)

Electric head stunning: Typically used for hogs - An electric stunner is used to produce a grand mal seizure, then the animal's throat is cut and it bleeds to death. "Insufficient amperage can cause an animal to be paralyzed without losing sensibility". (Survey of Sunning and Handling, Ag Res Serv/USDA)

Chickens and turkeys are exempt from the HMSA. Approximately 8.2 billion chicken and turkeys are slaughtered in the U.S. each year.

10-year investigation of slaughterhouses across the country resulted in book "Slaughterhouse" by Gail Eisnitz, Chief investigator for HFA

Began with an anonymous tip from an inspector at a slaughterhouse in Florida

Entailed in-depth, tape-recorded interviews with top officials from the federal meat inspector's union, USDA veterinarians, and slaughterhouse workers with more than 2 million hours on the kill floor.

Signed affidavits testifying that contaminated meat and poultry are pouring out of federally inspected plants and animals are routinely beaten, skinned, boiled, and disassembled alive.

Slaughterhouse workers have told of instances of cattle whose legs were sawed or burned off with blowtorches while they were alive, after they had fallen through the slats of loading ramps.

When the cows are hanging upside down and kicking, the workers take their clippers and cut off the cow's free leg (the skinny part below the knee) to shorten its reach.

When the pigs don't move fast enough through the chutes, workers sometimes poke them with electric stunners in the eyes or anus. Some animals are chained and dragged by small tractors.

A lot of times the skinner finds out an animal is still conscious when he slices the side of its head and it starts kicking wildly. The skinner shoves a knife into the back of its head to cut the spinal cord. This paralyzes the cow from the neck down. The animal remains conscious and able to feel pain but cannot struggle anymore.

The stickers play sadistic games. They poke the sharp knife deep into the animal's eye until it reaches the brain. They slice off the hog's noses and rub salt into it.

Most people would be shocked, and frankly disgusted, to discover that with amazing frequency these animals are literally tortured to death.

Buying meat subsidizes these atrocities. The only solution is to not buy animal products. For more information go to Farm Sanctuary.