Wild turkeys may live 15 years, but factory-farmed, genetically
manipulated, severely misshapen turkeys typically now go to slaughter at
age 12 to 26 weeks. Farm workers often cut of parts of turkeys' beaks,
toes and snoods--without anesthesia--and the birds usually endure their
shortened lifetimes crammed inside dimly lit, windowless warehouse sheds.
Standing in filthy waste, they breathe overpowering ammonia fumes and
dust, get doesd with antibiotics and are squeezed into 3-square-foot piece
amid a bobbing sea of as many as 5,000 to 25,000 birds. Many turkeys
succumb to heat prostration, heart attacks, infectious diseases and
cancer.
With the help of more than $16 million in federal dollars pouring into
turkey research since 1989, the "modern" domestic turkey has been bred to
be so pathologically obese that heart attacks occur often, crippling is
rampant and toms get "milked" so workers can then artificially inseminate
hens. Turkeys commonly suffer ulcerated feet, blistered breasts and
ammonia-burned eyes.
Workers grab and jam surviving "market-weight" turkeys into crates
inside multi-tiered trucks. The miserable birds endure the often
hours-long trips to slaughterhouses without food, water, or protection
from the elements. The U.S. Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958, as
amended, pitiful though its provisions are, totally excludes turkeys and
other fowl.
About 6,000 U.S. turkey-growing farms--with North Carolina, Minnesota,
Arkansas, Virginia, California and Missouri topping the list--produce more
than 10 billion pounds of turkey manure each year, which can seriously
contaminate drinking water, according to the December 1997 congressional
report "Animal Waste Pollution In America," requested by U.S. Senator Tom
Harken (D-Iowa).
An extremely modest, 3-ounce "light-meat" serving, the size of a deck
of cards, contains about as much cholesterol (80 milligrams) as does beef,
derives 26 percent of its calories from fat, and lacks cancer-fighting
fiber and antioxidants, according to the standard reference Bowes and
Church's Food Values.
As the trade publication International Hatchery Practice
reported in 1991, "The last decade has thrown up numerous examples of
new [turkey] diseases" that can lead to human food
poisoning.
For more information on turkeys and other
equally-abused fowl, click below.
Enjoy That Holiday Turkey?