VICTORY! The USDA has rejected the cruel high-speed slaughter of chickens. Read more about this decision here. Thank you for adding your voice to stop the cruelty!
Nearly 1 million chickens and turkeys are painfully boiled alive at slaughterhouses throughout the United States. And if the chicken industry gets its way, that number is set to go much higher. We must not let them torture even more birds for profit!
The National Chicken Council — a group representing the chicken industry — has petitioned the USDA to let poultry companies speed up their processing lines, making it impossible to kill the birds in an even remotely humane way.
Currently, 140 chickens and 45 turkeys can be slaughtered per minute — and that’s already far too fast, which is why the birds are so often boiled alive in the cruel slaughter process, which involves shackling conscious birds upside-down to a conveyor belt, dipping them in electrified water to “stun” them, running a blade through the neck to behead them, and then plunging the birds into scalding water.
If the proposal goes through, chicken manufacturers may request a waiver to speed up this gruesome line as fast as they want, just so they can make more profits.
Moving so fast, workers will be more prone to improperly securing the birds in their shackles, causing the blade to miss and the birds to be scalded alive.
Workers will also suffer; already, an average of one Tyson worker per month faces amputation from an on-the-job injury.
Don’t let the chicken industry torture even more birds in the name of profit. Sign this petition now to tell the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to reject their petition, and abandon any plans to allow high-speed slaughter of chickens.