The Meatrix

November 18, 2003

Well, that was FABULOUS!!! What a great way to educate! I especially

liked how at the end it gave resources for finding out how to get decent

meat, and didn't cram any vegetarian rhetoric down anyone's throats.

This is a huge issue for me. My father owns a small business that sells

meat, seafood etc. to restaurants, and I've always had an enormous

ethical struggle with the meat issue. I can't change him, but I can

change MY choices. As a chicken owner/lover, and cannot condone the

horrific treatment of these poor animals in the name of satisfying easy

consumerism. Here's another tidbit from " The Ecologist, " a British

magazine about turkeys. Please try to find a free-range turkey. This

article doesn't even get into the use of " turkey saddles " which is what

these huge, mutant turkeys need to try to mate nautrally - it's a sick,

sick business.

~~~~~

From the ecologist: http://www.theecologist.org/article.html?article=217

Every year 6 million turkeys are slaughtered in the UK, simply to meet

Christmas demand. Most turkeys are reared in windowless sheds with up to

25,000 other birds and have so little space that moving becomes an

overly stressful challenge that can induce aggression. To prevent this

aggression most turkeys spend their short lives in near-darkness. Some

are also de-beaked, a process during which young birds have the end of

their beak sliced off with a red-hot blade. This process, which can

cause life-long pain, is carried out to prevent feather-pecking and

cannibalism, behavioural traits which have become rife only under

factory farm conditions.

Factory-farm turkeys have been selectively bred to have so much

breast-meat that natural breeding has become physically impossible; all

reproduction is by artificial insemination. Their bodies are often so

heavy that many adult males (which can weigh as much as an 8 or 9

year-old child) suffer from painful degenerative hip disorders. When

ready for slaughter, the turkeys are unloaded from transport crates and

hung upside-down from shackles. The law allows the birds to be left

hanging like this for up to six minutes before slaughter. The moving

shackle line then drags the turkeys through a bath of electrified water

that is meant to render them unconscious before their throats are cut,

but sometimes struggling birds’ heads miss the bath entirely, leaving

them fully conscious during throat-cutting. Some are even still alive

when they enter the feather-loosening scalding tank. Moreover, it is

common for their wings to hang down below their heads resulting in

painful electric shocks from the electrified water.

The life of an intensively farmed turkey is a world apart from that of

its ancestors. Originally a native of America, the common turkey is a

sociable and curious bird. In the wild, it will live for around 10 years

and like chickens, turkeys roost in trees as soon as they are able to

fly, and dust-bathe to clean their feathers. None of these natural

behaviours are possible within the squalid and cramped conditions of the

factory farm.

Write to Elliot Morley, Parliamentary Secretary, DEFRA, Nobel House, 17

Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR. Explain the suffering of intensively

farmed turkeys and ask him to introduce legislation to prevent routine

mutilations, reduce stocking densities, and end selective breeding. If

you are buying turkey this Christmas, choose free range/organic or

consider a cruelty-free vegetarian alternative. Copy your letters to:

Compassion in World Farming, Charles House, 5a Charles Street,

Petersfield, Hampshire, GU32 3EH.Tel: +44 (0)1730 264 208 or visit

www.ciwf.co.uk