From: wheeler@super.org (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
Subject: UPC on Humane Slaughter
Organization: Supercomputing Research Center (Bowie, MD)
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:17:19 GMT


Poultry Slaughter : The Need for Legislation
by Karen Davis

At the poultry slaughter plant each day thousands of birds
are crammed inside crates stacked on trucks waiting to be
killed.  Truckload after truckload pulls into the holding
dock where huge fans rotate to reduce the number of birds
who will die of heat prostration while waiting to enter the
slaughterhouse.  A forklift picks the topmost pallet of
crates off each flatbed truck, and the birds disappear into
the darkness.

They come out of the darkness.  "Live haul involves
hand-catching the birds, mostly at night, in a darkened
dust-laden atmosphere and trucking them long distances", a
USDA manual explains.  In the words of a poultry scientist,
"The ending of a broiler's or turkey's experience involves
severe stresses".  Stress begins with the withdrawal of food
and water several hours before catching to save feed costs
and reduce messy gizzards at the plant.  "Spent" laying hens
are simply torn from the battery to the transport cages
without regard to preserving "carcass quality".

At the slaughterhouse, birds wait in the trucks anywhere
from 1 to 9 hours to be killed.  Inside the plant, each bird
is violently jammed into a movable metal rack that holds
them upside down by their feet.

Killing the birds is a slow process.  The USDA recommends
that a bird hang in a shackle a minimum of 40 to 60 seconds
prior to stunning to reduce excitement and ensure proper
stunning.  Since stunners are not required by law, they
aren't always used and vary considerably in effectiveness
when they are used.  Farm Sanctuary poultry slaughter videos
show chickens in a Los Angeles factory having their throats
cut without being stunned or killed, and ineffectively
stunned turkeys going to (and from) the knife conscious,
flapping, twitching, and crying.

The federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958 does not
cover poultry; the term "livestock", as defined in the Act,
excludes birds.  (In 1957, the Poultry Products Inspection
Act brought poultry under the same inspections system as the
Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 which mandates that meat
be inspected for visible disease and deformity, not
bacterial contamination.) Responding to my inquiry, a staff
veter-inerian with the USDA Food Safety and Inspection
Service wrote that most poultry plants render birds
unconscious by electrically stunning them before slaughter
and processing.  This assurance is not reliable.

The typical stunning machine is a brine-filled electrified
trough, through which the birds' heads are dragged as the
dangle upside-down from the shackles.  The ramp at the
entrance to the stunner often becomes wet due to splashing
as the birds enter the stunner causing them pre-stunning
shock.  (A good humane slaughter law would address this
nightmare.) USDA notes stunning time as about 7 seconds per
bird.  Stunning is done not mainly for humane reasons, but
to ensure the "satisfactory bleeding and feather release"
deemed essential for marketing the carcass.  Indeed, a phase
of stunning is a recommended 10-second "recovery" phase in
which heartbeat and breathing are deliberately restored "to
get the blood release".  Birds can regain consciousness
during this phase.  A researcher writes in Turkey World
(July - August 1987), "A good rule of thumb for checking for
an adequate stun is to remove the bird immediately after
stun and place it on the floor.  The bird should be able to
stand within 1 - 2 minutes.

The policy is that birds are to be desensitized but not
killed by the stunner, with the result that relatively low
currents prevail.  (A good humane slaughter law would
require a current level sufficient to ensure cardiac
arrest.) This policy has been challenged by veterinary
studies in Great Britain.  Birds killed in the stunner are
alleged to produce red and tough carcasses, but in blind
trials, consumers could not distinguish between electrocuted
and lightly stunned birds.  This is an important finding,
because research also shows that only about a third of
broiler chickens are stunned by common currents.  Millions
of birds are alive, many of them sentient and breathing, not
only as they approach the knife but upon entering the scald
tank (which loosens feathers) 55 to 100 seconds after the
throat-cutting.  (A good humane slaughter law would regulate
throat cutting, requiring the severance of both carotid
arteries to ensure swift brain death).  Commercially, the
result is a daily stack of rejected cherry-colored
"redskins", referring to birds who have not been bled and
were alive when they entered the scald.  Linking welfare and
business arguments, some veterinarians in Great Britain
stand in favor of legally requiring that poultry be killed
during stunning.

Remedies

Unlike Great Britain and Canada, the U.S. has not extended
even nominal legal protection to poultry.  Though no truly
humane system of slaughter can be devised, the present
situation could be improved by redefining livestock in the
Federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act to include poultry,
or by amending the Federal Poultry Products Inspection Act
to provide for the humane slaughter of poultry (HR 4124).
In some states, poultry slaughter abuse could probably be
prosecuted under existing state anti-cruelty laws, a
prospect that should be investigated.  All states should
enact humane slaughter legislation to protect poultry used
in intrastate (within state) commerce and in plants that
kill 20,000 or fewer birds, because livestock confined to
intrastate commerce and slaughtered in these smaller plants
are not covered by federal law:  state laws are needed.
Those states that already have humane slaughter laws should
adopt amendments specifically to include poultry, as was
done in 1991 in California.


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