I have not visited a chicken slaughter house, but evidently it is not a pretty sight. At most slaughterhouses, chickens are hung upside-down and attached by their feet to a moving line while still conscious. The birds’ heads and upper bodies are dragged through an electrified water bath, which immobilizes the birds to reduce their struggling and paralyzes their follicles to facilitate feather removal.

After immobilization, the birds have their necks cut by a machine blade or by a human hand before proceeding to a scalding tank. Birds who are missed by the mechanical blade or who have only one jugular vein severed may retain consciousness while entering the tank, where they are boiled alive. In Fiscal Year 1993, of the 7.08 billion total poultry slaughtered in USDA facilities, 3.12 million birds were reported to have entered scalding tanks while still alive.

My daughter Paige performed today at Disneyland as part of a flute ensemble. After her Anaheim gigs, we have a custom of dining at Bucca Di Beppo, a pleasant family oriented Italian restaurant. As fate would have it, one of Paige’s friends ordered the chicken parmesan, which on any other evening would have mildly interested me. That temptation is a thing of the past.

Tomorrow: What are free range products?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Vegetarian Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.