Causecast

Butterball workers were documented punching and stomping on live turkeys, slamming them against walls, and worse during an undercover investigation at a Butterball slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas.

One Butterball employee stomped on a bird’s head until her skull exploded, another swung a turkey against a metal handrail so hard that her spine popped out, and another was seen inserting his finger into a turkey’s cloaca (vagina).

One worker told an investigator: “If you jump on their stomachs right, they’ll pop … or their insides will come out of their [rectums],” and other Butterball workers frequently bragged about kicking and tormenting birds. Read more in the investigators’ log notes.

PETA’s investigators discovered these horrors between April and July, 2006, during an undercover investigation at a Butterball plant that slaughters approximately 50,000 birds each day.

Why Does This Abuse Happen?

Butterball turkeys are killed using a process that involves hanging live birds by their legs, shocking them in an electrified bath of water so that they become paralyzed (though they still feel pain), slitting their throats, and then running them through a tank of scalding-hot water for defeathering.

Because Butterball’s current slaughter method gives workers access to live birds, the animals often suffer when workers become frustrated or bored and desensitized, as was the case at this Butterball plant and the other poultry plants that PETA has investigated.

Even though they constitute more than 98 percent of the land animals eaten in the United States, birds are excluded from coverage under the only federal law designed to protect animals during slaughter, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA).

You Can Help Stop This!

• Automatically send a letter to your member of Congress, asking him or her to ensure that birds are covered by the HMSA. This is a simple form that just takes a minute to fill out.
• Go vegetarian today! Not eating animals is the best way to help them. Order PETA’s vegetarian starter kit full of recipes and health and shopping information today.
• Help spread the word! Send PETA’s undercover footage to your friends, family members, and coworkers.

For related news, check out Animals.