A former slaughterhouse worker, for one of America’s largest chicken processors in Arkansas, witnessed so many acts of cruelty toward chickens on a daily basis that he quit his job at the plant.
Here are just a few of the horrific acts too often witnessed. A shift supervisor turns down the “stunner” which humanely stuns the chickens before they are killed. This results in chickens being scalded to death in the scalding tank. When this happens the chickens scream and kick so fiercely while being scalded to death that their bodies come apart in the struggle, even their eyes pop out of their heads. The stunner is turned down to keep the processing line moving faster so always more chickens get processed which may please slaughterhouse management.
Also because the processing line must operate at such high speed to please plant management, processing-line supervisors may allow the shackle area to become overloaded with chickens causing hundreds of birds a day to die from smothering. Supervisors would rather lose hundreds of birds to smothering than risk being reprimanded for not filling up all the shackles with birds and allowing empty shackles to go down the processing production line.
The freezing cold and searing heat during different times of year may also contribute to frustration among slaughterhouse employees which is inhumane to people as well as the birds. The birds may too often die of heat stroke, heart attack and suffocation during the extremely hot and cold months. Frustrated, disgruntled, relatively low paid employees may lead to cruel attacks on the birds too.
Employees too often may build dry ice bombs and put them on the processing line with live chickens. When it explodes it rips the live birds apart and scatters body parts all over the floor. Low-paid, frustrated slaughterhouse employees too often stomp birds to death and rip the heads, legs and wings off of live chickens and run over live chickens with a forklift then laugh about it. All this has been caught on tape!
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: FARM SANCTUARY NEWS SUMMER 2003