November 20, 2007 at 08:36:40

Turkeys have little to be thankful for hidden videos show

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Martha Rosenberg (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

For OpEdNews: Martha Rosenberg - Writer

The alarms rings at 3:45 AM. I reach for the ibuprofen. Without it my hands are too sore and swollen to even close....much less hold a turkey's legs. Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, cotton gloves and taping them doesn't help when you're banging into shackles all day. The flesh is still raw and exposed.

I dress with the video cam that's become part of my daily outfit carefully hidden and fortify myself with enough food to get through the work day.

When we arrive at House of Raeford the trucks full of live turkeys are
already waiting to be unloaded; it's not even 5:30 AM

So begins the diary of "Sam"--not his real name--who worked as an undercover investigator for Mercy For Animals (MFA), a national, not for profit animal advocacy organization, earlier this year while employed as a "live hanger" at House of Raeford's turkey slaughterhouse in Raeford, North Carolina.

House of Raeford Farms Inc., (HORF) headquartered in Raeford is the seventh largest turkey producer in the U.S. with seven facilities in North and South Carolina and Louisiana where it breeds, slaughters and processes chickens and turkeys.

While slaughtering turkeys is no one's first choice of work,

House of Raeford has an especially checkered past. In 2003 a chlorine gas leak at HORF's Rose Hill chicken plant killed worker Bruce Glover, 39. The following year an ammonia spill at the same plant forced the evacuation of two towns. And last year HORF employee Pedro P. Amaya, 42, was found shot to death in the mobile home he shared with three other poultry workers; the apparent motive robbery, including theft of $60 of pain pills.

A "live hanger" culture exists in slaughter plants says Sam in which there is no recognition of a turkey or chicken being alive or capable of pain.

As they unloaded trucks, workers routinely threw birds from one

tier to another, letting them fall 20 feet, swung them around by their feet, "boxed" them as they hung upside down and held them under truck wheels to be crushed. www.mercyforanimals.org/HOR/

Workers pulled heads and legs off turkeys when they were stuck in crates and when they weren't--just for the hell of it.

Workers even sexually abused the birds--inserting their fingers into their cloacae (vaginal cavities) and removing eggs they would throw at each other.

Thanks to current turkey farming methods, the birds that arrived were already injured.

"There were 100 turkeys and chickens dead upon arrival today, many missing feathers with open wounds and with large sores on their feet" writes Sam in his investigator's diary on January 12, 2007. "I saw a chicken with an abscess on her left leg about the size of a tennis ball and another chicken whose right leg was mashed to the point of bloody pulp and [she was still] hanged by both legs to go down the line."

Modern turkeys are drugged and bred to grow so quickly that their legs can't support their own weight and many arrived with legs and knees broken or dislocated says Sam. When you tried to remove them from their crates, their legs would twist completely around, offering no resistance, limp.

The turkeys must have been in a lot of pain reflects Sam, though they don't cry out. In fact the only sound you hear as you hang them is the "trucks being washed out to go back and get a new load."

The same day Mercy For Animals released its undercover video, Denny's, the US' largest full service restaurant chain and a HORF turkey customer, announced it was suspending its supplier. House of Raeford also condemned the videotaped acts and promised an investigation.

But there is no record that Hoke County prosecutor Kristy Newton launched an investigation or brought cruelty-to-animal charges.

Nor did HORF customer Arby's ever acknowledge the videotaped atrocities.

1 | 2

Martha Rosenberg is columnist and cartoonist based in Chicago I

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Contact Author

Contact Editor

View Authors' Articles

Book Recommendations for "Animals Culture Death"

Animal rights and the culture of death.(FEATURE ARTICLE): An article from: Catholic Insight
by Terry O'Neill

$9.95

Number of pages: 5
Publisher: Catholic Insight

The Living End: The New Sciences of Death, Ageing and Immortality
by Guy Brown

$24.95
Lowest New Price $4.94
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Death and Money in The Afternoon: A History of the Spanish Bullfight
by Adrian Shubert

$60.00
Lowest New Price $12.00
Number of pages: 284
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Surviving the Iron Curtain: A Microscopic View of What Life Was Like Inside a War-Torn Region
by Chief Uche Jim Ojiaku

$24.95
Lowest New Price $19.00
Number of pages: 191
Publisher: PublishAmerica

View All Book Recommendations

Share this page: (what's this?) Tell a Friend:

(More...)

1 comments

To view all comments:

I agree by Barker on Wednesday, Nov 21, 2007 at 10:52:29 AM

Want to post your own comment on this Article?

How would you rate this?

You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.

It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....

Click Here to Login (or Signup)

View Ratings

Here are the current ratings

Must Read (0)	Well Said (0)	News (0)
Touching (0)	Funny (0)	Supported (0)
Interesting (0)	Inspiring (0)	Valuable (0)

Tell a Friend: