"Elaine Jones" wrote in message
...
Quoting from message
posted on 24 Dec 2006 by Jim Webster
I would like to add:


yes, the old advice of 'eat a peck of earth before you die' was good
advice

"Peck o' muck" isn't it?

given the nature of all the cross posts I thought it wise to steer clear of
the
Vernacular

Just to wish everyone a good Christmas, hope the Turkey/Goose/fowl of choice
lives up to your expectations



Jim Webster

On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 11:06:17 -0000, "Jim Webster"
wrote:


"Elaine Jones" wrote in message
...
Quoting from message
posted on 24 Dec 2006 by Jim Webster
I would like to add:


yes, the old advice of 'eat a peck of earth before you die' was good
advice

"Peck o' muck" isn't it?

given the nature of all the cross posts I thought it wise to steer clear of
the
Vernacular

Just to wish everyone a good Christmas, hope the Turkey/Goose/fowl of choice
lives up to your expectations

Nut roast with roasties and Brussels. Yummy.
***************************






The logic some people use for not attending church, is used to avoid washing

1.I was forced to as a child.
2.People who make soap are only after your money.
3.I wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.
4.People who wash are hypocrites-they think they are cleaner than everyone else.
5.There are so many different kinds of soap,I can't decide which one is best.
6.I used to wash, but it got boring so I stopped.
7.None of my friends wash.
8.The bathroom is never warm enough in the winter or cool enough in the summer.
9.I'll start washing when I get older and dirtier.
10.I can't spare the time .

"Jim Webster" wrote in message ...

Just to wish everyone a good Christmas, hope the Turkey/Goose/fowl of choice
lives up to your expectations

'Another Bloody Christmas. Inside the Bootiful World of the
Turkey Industry.

Arkangel. 24 December 2006.

Certain facts regarding the obtaining of evidence of animal
abuse have been withheld from this article for obvious
reasons, particularly since the information obtained by the
undercover investigator have been and continues to be used
towards ending the abomination that is livestock farming. For
those wishing to know the whereabouts of farms and units
mentioned in this article , the answer is that the abuse
witnessed in these establishments is not isolated and that
turkey farms are widespread throughout the country although
particularly commonplace in the Norfolk area on the east
coast of England.

Christmas was approaching and out came the annual ads for
extra staff at poultry farms and processing units around the
country. After a few days' looking for job vacancies, I found
myself being shown around a Grampian chicken-processing unit
up north by its head of personnel. The killing had finished
for that shift and the machines were being washed down but
the stench of death remained, overwhelming and unmistakeable
to me from other jobs where I had witnessed animals being
slaughtered. It's a smell that, once encountered, you simply
never forget - it's not the smell of putrefying flesh since
the flesh I describe is fresh, but it's the smell of flesh
that has had the life sucked from it and once the body has
been skinned the smell permeates absolutely everything. Hard
to imagine anyone accepting that and the killing as a career
prospect.

The head of personnel announced that between the day and
night shifts (this unit operates twenty four hours)
approximately fifty thousand birds are slaughtered. I was
told that the chickens were gassed in their crates after
being unloaded from the lorries in order to allegedly reduce
their stress at being manhandled out of crates before being
"thrown" or hung onto shackles and thereafter dunked in an
electrified water tank for stunning prior to the kill itself.

It was hard for me to equate this token gesture of
"compassion" with the incongruous picture of those very
shackles in which I had earlier noticed chickens' feet left
to hang after the rest of their sad little bodies had been
cut from them; the feet were presumably only removed to make
way for the next wave of live birds to be slaughtered during
the next shift. I was not shown the kill area where the birds
have their throats cut since access had apparently been
restricted to qualified slaughterers only, following an
expose the previous Christmas by an investigative media
reporter who had worked at the unit for a couple of days.

The guided tour over, I took off my blood covered white
wellies and attempted to wash away the stench of death that
clung to me . Although gainful employment was not on the
cards for me that day, I had no reason to be deterred; if
there was one thing I had learned from my visit to the
Grampian unit, it was that it's a big BLOODY business. That
meant there were plenty of jobs to be had so that by the time
I'd received my expected rejection letter from Grampian, I
had already obtained a position in Norfolk with Bernard
Mathews. My interview had gone well; I'd even been asked
if I was vegetarian and if I had a problem with animals being
killed to be eaten! Um, no to the first and err no to the
second.

Getting in was a doddle and I was told to be on site at 5 the
following morning for my induction.

I dutifully arrived as instructed the next day. There was
that smell of death, of dead animals, again. I'd actually
noticed it half a mile away from the factory! As I approached
the unit I could just make out in the morning mist the large
mansion where Mr Mathews resides and was probably at that
very moment fast asleep in his four poster bed while his
staff on morning shift were getting ready to slaughter a few
more thousand turkeys.

Following two hours of induction I was in the happy position
of knowing where to go in case of fire and a bona fide union
member to boot! It was at this point that we were to be
allocated our positions within the factory and I begged
inwardly to be put near the loading bay, the area where the
live birds would be taken off the lorries and shackled upside
down before stunning and killing.

But it wasn't to be. Instead, I was to spend eight to nine
hours a day putting plastic bags into cardboard boxes that
were moving along a conveyor and then dropping them down a
chute. With a half hour for lunch and ten minutes break three
times a day , it was hard to refuse such generous job
prospects. By eight thirty I was in my new undersized boiler
suit outfit, tripping over my oversized wellies, hair netted
and at my station ready for an honest days work.

Within ten seconds I was bored and decided it was time for
my first break. I knew that I was at the quiet end of the
factory where little with regard to live animals went on - or
anything else for that matter. I had somehow to get to the
other end without being stopped. Everyone had their place in
the factory and if you wandered into a section where you
didn't belong, you were quizzed about what you were doing. I
blended in well with the rest of the workers and as the
turnover of staff was high and new faces about the place were
common. It didn't take me long to work out that as long as I
mimicked some of the other workers' behavioural quirks, I
would not look out of place if I nosed around a bit so that
by the end of day one, after an extended lunch and ten short
breaks I was a little clearer on the lay out of the factory
and planned to make a further foray the next day into the
world of Bernard Matthew's turkey hell.

By eight the next morning I was allocated a new task for the
day: weighing and boxing turkeys for Sainsbury's and Tesco's.
After ten minutes, I sneaked off and keeping my head low,
made my way past gutters and packers, past the machine that
took waste away for pet food and finally out to the rear of
the building where men in white coats with clip boards
pretended to look busy while countless lorries carrying live
turkeys pulled into the yard and then lined up at the back of
the factory where other lorries stood in bays while men
unloaded the turkeys. Hair net notwithstanding, I began to
get some strange looks from men with clipboards so having
confirmed the location of the "business end" of the factory,
I returned to my post.

Chatting later to staff proved to be quite enlightening.
Among them was a soldier on holiday leave. I wondered why
he'd chosen such a brainless job but it transpired that the
factory was desperately short staffed and Mr Matthews had
asked a high ranking army official buddy whether any of his
lads fancied earning some extra cash. It just so happened
that a cock up with wages had left some of them skint, so
that straight from serving 6 months in Kosovo, three of them
found themselves working in the unit. Apparently, two months
before my arrival, the staff situation was so critical that
patients from the local psychiatric hospital were recruited
onto the factory floor!

Well, that did it for me! It was time to make my move before
I joined the good fellows at the local hospital. Familiar now
with the lie of the land and with a story prepared should I be
caught in an area that was out of bounds, I weighed my last
turkey, placed it in the wrong box and made my escape.

Trying to appear inconspicuous, I attempted to gain access
to the killing area, located at the back of the factory, but this
proved to be definitely out of bounds and several men
equipped with large bloody knives and ugly faces snarled at
me as I walked past. There was no way I could stand and
watch - they made it quite clear I was not welcome in their
territory where the birds had their throats slit.

Unwilling to cause a problem and draw too much attention to
myself I decided to make my way to the loading bay where
several hundred turkeys were being unloaded from two trucks
where they had been packed tightly into tiny metal
compartments. As a senior member of staff asked if he could
help me and after giving him a credible reason as to why I
was there, I was allowed to carry on watching and even got a
chance to chat to the "pullers" (those who pull the turkeys
from the lorry and put them onto the shackles).

It was shocking to watch the panic-stricken birds being
roughly pulled from the compartments sometimes four at a time
and then thrown onto the shackles. Most of the birds would
defecate in fear and all flapped desperately as the shackle
conveyer moved slowly into the factory where they would be
"stunned" and have their throats slashed. Birds removed from
their caging and found to be in obvious pain with broken
wings had their necks broken. I remember a particular worker
who carried out some of these "mercy" killings using just one
hand, but this was clearly ineffective, for the birds
struggled even more as they were shackled - now with
partially broken necks - to rejoin the production line.

Any consideration to the welfare of the birds by the staff
was always just a token gesture. They had to work fast; they
stood on a ramp which moved slowly down from the top level
of the truck to the bottom and all the turkeys had to be pulled
out and thrown onto the shackles before the ramp went onto
the lower level. It was all very crude. The behaviour of the
men was typical of workers who work with hundreds if not
thousands of animals each day; they had become desensitised
to the suffering and had no real thought for the welfare of
the animals; except, of course, if an inspector happened to
be watching. My only source of comfort at that point was that
the suffering of these animals was soon to end and that they
would be dead in a matter of minutes. More lorries were
lining up packed full of Christmas turkeys ready to replenish
the insatiable demand for yet more flesh, but where were so
many birds coming from?

No answers there. Time to move on and investigate further,
but although it would not have looked unusual in a place like
this, I was unwilling to simply walk out in case I needed to
return for a few more days so instead I went sick.

So where were these empty lorries going to once they had
delivered the turkeys? Who were the suppliers?

It didn't take me long to find the source of this huge supply
of birds. Within half an hour's drive from the BM factory
there they we the largest broiler units that I have ever
seen. Dozens of them dotted around an old air base. I was to
find out later that there were a number of similar air bases
in the Norfolk area that were home to many hundreds of
thousands of turkeys. It was clear from my investigations
that all the birds were owned by BM and were destined for his
factory. A few small local turkey farms were also supplying
BM too. Some sheds at the air base were empty, but the ones
that were full were typical of a turkey broiler unit except
much bigger! Maybe the smaller turkey producers would give
more consideration to the welfare of these large intelligent
birds (yeah right).

Christmas was drawing near and the demand for extra staff
would be dropping off soon and as I hadn't quite finished
snooping around this bloody little world, I moved on to my
next port of call.

I had two more small producers in Norfolk to visit before I
ventured further south. I secured a plucking job in the first
of these which was a farm with roughly 5,000 birds, some of
which were destined for Harrods. Here they reared what is
known as the "traditional turkey" whose generic type is
predominantly black. These birds do not have their heads
removed after slaughter so after "stunning", a knife is
shoved into their beaks and down their gullets where the
tissue is incredibly delicate and sensitive and their throats
cut from the inside, thus leaving the carcass unblemished for
the consumer... As hard as I tried I just could not get into
the killing area.

The second farm - compared to the farms I had already visited
- was tiny, but one of the worst. It kept about three hundred
birds in a shed where turkeys were kept at one end and killed
and plucked at the other. A local man was helping out with
the plucking when I first entered the building and I noticed
that the bird he was plucking was twitching as he pulled out
its feathers. To begin with, I believed this was caused by
post-mortem nerve reflexes, but I was soon to find out that
their killing methods were far from fool proof.

I watched the farm owner carefully as he showed me the ropes.
He caught a turkey by the legs and put it head first into a
funnel; he applied an antiquated electric tong to where its
head was sticking out of the bottom of the funnel then pulled
its neck, yanked it out of the funnel and hooked its legs up
onto a chain hanging from the ceiling. The turkey flapped
desperately as the farmer proceeded to pluck its feathers .
and then it blinked! It was still alive! I mentioned this to
the farmer and he laughed and told me that it was just nerves
and resumed his task. But the turkey struggled and flapped so
much he was forced to stop for a minute before continuing and
then left me with the job to finish. I immediately felt for a
heartbeat. There was none. At last the turkey was finally
dead.

All the killing was done by the helper and the owner. Before
I left later that day a dozen more birds had been stunned and
had their necks broken ineffectively and were plucked while
still alive. I am no vet, but I have worked with and seen
enough animals being killed to know when an animal is alive
or dead. Protesting as much as I could without showing too
much consideration for the birds' welfare (in case he
contacted other farms or the turkey federation) did little
good. I left that evening and headed south.

Receiving info on a small farm in the Guildford area of
Surrey I went along for a job and within no time was plucking
turkeys. The farm held approximately three thousand
"traditional" birds a percentage of which were, once again,
destined for Harrods; every now and then the farm owner
herded about a hundred from the intensive shed unit, through
the farm and into a holding pen connected to the small
processing building, where they were destined to the same
fate assigned to their "traditional" turkey relatives in the
Norfolk slaughterhouse I'd visited earlier. The room that I
worked in was just for plucking and I worked alongside about
eight locals plucking the still warm turkeys.

The killing room itself was next door to where I was working
and occasionally I drifted over there to stand around briefly
before retreating to my plucking section. After chatting with
the boss I finally managed to get a job inside the killing
room chopping off wings and plucking the neck and chest
feathers. The room had an electric tank in which the turkey's
heads were dunked after they had been hung upside down by
the feet onto the shackles that carried them slowly around the
room. After coming out of the "stunning" tank, a knife was
shoved into their beaks to slit their throats from the
inside. Blood would shoot absolutely everywhere and as the
day progressed, the walls and floor would get covered in
feathers and blood.

The electric tank had to be topped up frequently as the birds
struggled and thrashed about so much when they were being
dipped in it that the water would splash out, often onto the
live birds below that had been herded into the killing room
and were awaiting death. Consequently, the water level was
sometimes so low that some birds could lift their heads just
enough to avoid the tank of water and as a result would have
to be placed back in line while the tank was refilled.

A couple of days into the job and I was asked to take over as
"catcher" which meant herding the turkeys from the outside
pen and into the killing room where I would have to catch the
birds myself, hang them up onto the shackles and make sure
that they went through the water tank properly. I cannot
describe how nauseated I was that I would be the one to
choose those to be killed next but for reasons that I can't
go into I had to accept the job with a smile.

The turkeys were very big and extremely heavy. As I
approached them, I had to grab them by the legs which wasn't
that simple since they would hide under one another trying to
avoid capture after they saw what was happening to their
companions. As I grabbed them they would struggle violently -
some struggled so much I would have to place them back onto
the floor and try again. I must add that at all times I was
as careful and as caring as I could possibly be under the
circumstances. Sadly I could not say the same of the other
workers. The only thing I hoped was that I was making it as
painless as I could for the birds that I had to handle.

I felt indescribably distressed by this job, but what upset
me more than anything else was the fact that no matter how
careful I was, as the turkeys legs were placed into the metal
shackles I could hear their ankle bones breaking from the
sheer weight of their enormous bodies. It's a sound I can
still hear to this day.

After a few hours engaged in this task, I simply could not
continue. I believed I now had all the information I needed.
I made my excuses and walked out even though the day had
not ended. As I turned back for one last look at the killing
room, the floor must have been three feet deep in white
feathers and wings. It reminded me of a snowdrift, except
this snow was soaked in the blood of so many innocent birds.

Christmas, a time for for giving? I don't think so.

DANNY

http://www.arkangelweb.org/features/...bloodyxmas.php

"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

Just to wish everyone a good Christmas, hope the Turkey/Goose/fowl of
choice
lives up to your expectations

'Another Bloody Christmas. Inside the Bootiful World of the
Turkey Industry.

Arkangel. 24 December 2006.

Certain facts regarding the obtaining of evidence of animal
abuse have been withheld from this article for obvious
reasons,

yep we made them up as we went along,

but then pearl isn't interested in truth

never mind

On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 15:24:56 -0000, "pearl"
wrote:

"Jim Webster" wrote in message ...

Just to wish everyone a good Christmas, hope the Turkey/Goose/fowl of choice
lives up to your expectations

'Another Bloody Christmas. Inside the Bootiful World of the
Turkey Industry.

Arkangel. 24 December 2006.

Certain facts regarding the obtaining of evidence of animal
abuse have been withheld from this article for obvious
reasons, particularly since the information obtained by the
undercover investigator have been and continues to be used
towards ending the abomination that is livestock farming. For
those wishing to know the whereabouts of farms and units
mentioned in this article , the answer is that the abuse
witnessed in these establishments is not isolated and that
turkey farms are widespread throughout the country although
particularly commonplace in the Norfolk area on the east
coast of England.

Christmas was approaching and out came the annual ads for
extra staff at poultry farms and processing units around the
country. After a few days' looking for job vacancies, I found
myself being shown around a Grampian chicken-processing unit
up north by its head of personnel. The killing had finished
for that shift and the machines were being washed down but
the stench of death remained, overwhelming and unmistakeable
to me from other jobs where I had witnessed animals being
slaughtered. It's a smell that, once encountered, you simply
never forget - it's not the smell of putrefying flesh since
the flesh I describe is fresh, but it's the smell of flesh
that has had the life sucked from it and once the body has
been skinned the smell permeates absolutely everything. Hard
to imagine anyone accepting that and the killing as a career
prospect.

The head of personnel announced that between the day and
night shifts (this unit operates twenty four hours)
approximately fifty thousand birds are slaughtered. I was
told that the chickens were gassed in their crates after
being unloaded from the lorries in order to allegedly reduce
their stress at being manhandled out of crates before being
"thrown" or hung onto shackles and thereafter dunked in an
electrified water tank for stunning prior to the kill itself.

It was hard for me to equate this token gesture of
"compassion" with the incongruous picture of those very
shackles in which I had earlier noticed chickens' feet left
to hang after the rest of their sad little bodies had been
cut from them; the feet were presumably only removed to make
way for the next wave of live birds to be slaughtered during
the next shift. I was not shown the kill area where the birds
have their throats cut since access had apparently been
restricted to qualified slaughterers only, following an
expose the previous Christmas by an investigative media
reporter who had worked at the unit for a couple of days.

The guided tour over, I took off my blood covered white
wellies and attempted to wash away the stench of death that
clung to me . Although gainful employment was not on the
cards for me that day, I had no reason to be deterred; if
there was one thing I had learned from my visit to the
Grampian unit, it was that it's a big BLOODY business. That
meant there were plenty of jobs to be had so that by the time
I'd received my expected rejection letter from Grampian, I
had already obtained a position in Norfolk with Bernard
Mathews. My interview had gone well; I'd even been asked
if I was vegetarian and if I had a problem with animals being
killed to be eaten! Um, no to the first and err no to the
second.

Getting in was a doddle and I was told to be on site at 5 the
following morning for my induction.

I dutifully arrived as instructed the next day. There was
that smell of death, of dead animals, again. I'd actually
noticed it half a mile away from the factory! As I approached
the unit I could just make out in the morning mist the large
mansion where Mr Mathews resides and was probably at that
very moment fast asleep in his four poster bed while his
staff on morning shift were getting ready to slaughter a few
more thousand turkeys.

Following two hours of induction I was in the happy position
of knowing where to go in case of fire and a bona fide union
member to boot! It was at this point that we were to be
allocated our positions within the factory and I begged
inwardly to be put near the loading bay, the area where the
live birds would be taken off the lorries and shackled upside
down before stunning and killing.

But it wasn't to be. Instead, I was to spend eight to nine
hours a day putting plastic bags into cardboard boxes that
were moving along a conveyor and then dropping them down a
chute. With a half hour for lunch and ten minutes break three
times a day , it was hard to refuse such generous job
prospects. By eight thirty I was in my new undersized boiler
suit outfit, tripping over my oversized wellies, hair netted
and at my station ready for an honest days work.

Within ten seconds I was bored and decided it was time for
my first break. I knew that I was at the quiet end of the
factory where little with regard to live animals went on - or
anything else for that matter. I had somehow to get to the
other end without being stopped. Everyone had their place in
the factory and if you wandered into a section where you
didn't belong, you were quizzed about what you were doing. I
blended in well with the rest of the workers and as the
turnover of staff was high and new faces about the place were
common. It didn't take me long to work out that as long as I
mimicked some of the other workers' behavioural quirks, I
would not look out of place if I nosed around a bit so that
by the end of day one, after an extended lunch and ten short
breaks I was a little clearer on the lay out of the factory
and planned to make a further foray the next day into the
world of Bernard Matthew's turkey hell.

By eight the next morning I was allocated a new task for the
day: weighing and boxing turkeys for Sainsbury's and Tesco's.
After ten minutes, I sneaked off and keeping my head low,
made my way past gutters and packers, past the machine that
took waste away for pet food and finally out to the rear of
the building where men in white coats with clip boards
pretended to look busy while countless lorries carrying live
turkeys pulled into the yard and then lined up at the back of
the factory where other lorries stood in bays while men
unloaded the turkeys. Hair net notwithstanding, I began to
get some strange looks from men with clipboards so having
confirmed the location of the "business end" of the factory,
I returned to my post.

Chatting later to staff proved to be quite enlightening.
Among them was a soldier on holiday leave. I wondered why
he'd chosen such a brainless job but it transpired that the
factory was desperately short staffed and Mr Matthews had
asked a high ranking army official buddy whether any of his
lads fancied earning some extra cash. It just so happened
that a cock up with wages had left some of them skint, so
that straight from serving 6 months in Kosovo, three of them
found themselves working in the unit. Apparently, two months
before my arrival, the staff situation was so critical that
patients from the local psychiatric hospital were recruited
onto the factory floor!

Well, that did it for me! It was time to make my move before
I joined the good fellows at the local hospital. Familiar now
with the lie of the land and with a story prepared should I be
caught in an area that was out of bounds, I weighed my last
turkey, placed it in the wrong box and made my escape.

Trying to appear inconspicuous, I attempted to gain access
to the killing area, located at the back of the factory, but this
proved to be definitely out of bounds and several men
equipped with large bloody knives and ugly faces snarled at
me as I walked past. There was no way I could stand and
watch - they made it quite clear I was not welcome in their
territory where the birds had their throats slit.

Unwilling to cause a problem and draw too much attention to
myself I decided to make my way to the loading bay where
several hundred turkeys were being unloaded from two trucks
where they had been packed tightly into tiny metal
compartments. As a senior member of staff asked if he could
help me and after giving him a credible reason as to why I
was there, I was allowed to carry on watching and even got a
chance to chat to the "pullers" (those who pull the turkeys
from the lorry and put them onto the shackles).

It was shocking to watch the panic-stricken birds being
roughly pulled from the compartments sometimes four at a time
and then thrown onto the shackles. Most of the birds would
defecate in fear and all flapped desperately as the shackle
conveyer moved slowly into the factory where they would be
"stunned" and have their throats slashed. Birds removed from
their caging and found to be in obvious pain with broken
wings had their necks broken. I remember a particular worker
who carried out some of these "mercy" killings using just one
hand, but this was clearly ineffective, for the birds
struggled even more as they were shackled - now with
partially broken necks - to rejoin the production line.

Any consideration to the welfare of the birds by the staff
was always just a token gesture. They had to work fast; they
stood on a ramp which moved slowly down from the top level
of the truck to the bottom and all the turkeys had to be pulled
out and thrown onto the shackles before the ramp went onto
the lower level. It was all very crude. The behaviour of the
men was typical of workers who work with hundreds if not
thousands of animals each day; they had become desensitised
to the suffering and had no real thought for the welfare of
the animals; except, of course, if an inspector happened to
be watching. My only source of comfort at that point was that
the suffering of these animals was soon to end and that they
would be dead in a matter of minutes. More lorries were
lining up packed full of Christmas turkeys ready to replenish
the insatiable demand for yet more flesh, but where were so
many birds coming from?

No answers there. Time to move on and investigate further,
but although it would not have looked unusual in a place like
this, I was unwilling to simply walk out in case I needed to
return for a few more days so instead I went sick.

So where were these empty lorries going to once they had
delivered the turkeys? Who were the suppliers?

It didn't take me long to find the source of this huge supply
of birds. Within half an hour's drive from the BM factory
there they we the largest broiler units that I have ever
seen. Dozens of them dotted around an old air base. I was to
find out later that there were a number of similar air bases
in the Norfolk area that were home to many hundreds of
thousands of turkeys. It was clear from my investigations
that all the birds were owned by BM and were destined for his
factory. A few small local turkey farms were also supplying
BM too. Some sheds at the air base were empty, but the ones
that were full were typical of a turkey broiler unit except
much bigger! Maybe the smaller turkey producers would give
more consideration to the welfare of these large intelligent
birds (yeah right).

Christmas was drawing near and the demand for extra staff
would be dropping off soon and as I hadn't quite finished
snooping around this bloody little world, I moved on to my
next port of call.

I had two more small producers in Norfolk to visit before I
ventured further south. I secured a plucking job in the first
of these which was a farm with roughly 5,000 birds, some of
which were destined for Harrods. Here they reared what is
known as the "traditional turkey" whose generic type is
predominantly black. These birds do not have their heads
removed after slaughter so after "stunning", a knife is
shoved into their beaks and down their gullets where the
tissue is incredibly delicate and sensitive and their throats
cut from the inside, thus leaving the carcass unblemished for
the consumer... As hard as I tried I just could not get into
the killing area.

The second farm - compared to the farms I had already visited
- was tiny, but one of the worst. It kept about three hundred
birds in a shed where turkeys were kept at one end and killed
and plucked at the other. A local man was helping out with
the plucking when I first entered the building and I noticed
that the bird he was plucking was twitching as he pulled out
its feathers. To begin with, I believed this was caused by
post-mortem nerve reflexes, but I was soon to find out that
their killing methods were far from fool proof.

I watched the farm owner carefully as he showed me the ropes.
He caught a turkey by the legs and put it head first into a
funnel; he applied an antiquated electric tong to where its
head was sticking out of the bottom of the funnel then pulled
its neck, yanked it out of the funnel and hooked its legs up
onto a chain hanging from the ceiling. The turkey flapped
desperately as the farmer proceeded to pluck its feathers .
and then it blinked! It was still alive! I mentioned this to
the farmer and he laughed and told me that it was just nerves
and resumed his task. But the turkey struggled and flapped so
much he was forced to stop for a minute before continuing and
then left me with the job to finish. I immediately felt for a
heartbeat. There was none. At last the turkey was finally
dead.

All the killing was done by the helper and the owner. Before
I left later that day a dozen more birds had been stunned and
had their necks broken ineffectively and were plucked while
still alive. I am no vet, but I have worked with and seen
enough animals being killed to know when an animal is alive
or dead. Protesting as much as I could without showing too
much consideration for the birds' welfare (in case he
contacted other farms or the turkey federation) did little
good. I left that evening and headed south.

Receiving info on a small farm in the Guildford area of
Surrey I went along for a job and within no time was plucking
turkeys. The farm held approximately three thousand
"traditional" birds a percentage of which were, once again,
destined for Harrods; every now and then the farm owner
herded about a hundred from the intensive shed unit, through
the farm and into a holding pen connected to the small
processing building, where they were destined to the same
fate assigned to their "traditional" turkey relatives in the
Norfolk slaughterhouse I'd visited earlier. The room that I
worked in was just for plucking and I worked alongside about
eight locals plucking the still warm turkeys.

The killing room itself was next door to where I was working
and occasionally I drifted over there to stand around briefly
before retreating to my plucking section. After chatting with
the boss I finally managed to get a job inside the killing
room chopping off wings and plucking the neck and chest
feathers. The room had an electric tank in which the turkey's
heads were dunked after they had been hung upside down by
the feet onto the shackles that carried them slowly around the
room. After coming out of the "stunning" tank, a knife was
shoved into their beaks to slit their throats from the
inside. Blood would shoot absolutely everywhere and as the
day progressed, the walls and floor would get covered in
feathers and blood.

The electric tank had to be topped up frequently as the birds
struggled and thrashed about so much when they were being
dipped in it that the water would splash out, often onto the
live birds below that had been herded into the killing room
and were awaiting death. Consequently, the water level was
sometimes so low that some birds could lift their heads just
enough to avoid the tank of water and as a result would have
to be placed back in line while the tank was refilled.

A couple of days into the job and I was asked to take over as
"catcher" which meant herding the turkeys from the outside
pen and into the killing room where I would have to catch the
birds myself, hang them up onto the shackles and make sure
that they went through the water tank properly. I cannot
describe how nauseated I was that I would be the one to
choose those to be killed next but for reasons that I can't
go into I had to accept the job with a smile.

The turkeys were very big and extremely heavy. As I
approached them, I had to grab them by the legs which wasn't
that simple since they would hide under one another trying to
avoid capture after they saw what was happening to their
companions. As I grabbed them they would struggle violently -
some struggled so much I would have to place them back onto
the floor and try again. I must add that at all times I was
as careful and as caring as I could possibly be under the
circumstances. Sadly I could not say the same of the other
workers. The only thing I hoped was that I was making it as
painless as I could for the birds that I had to handle.

I felt indescribably distressed by this job, but what upset
me more than anything else was the fact that no matter how
careful I was, as the turkeys legs were placed into the metal
shackles I could hear their ankle bones breaking from the
sheer weight of their enormous bodies. It's a sound I can
still hear to this day.

After a few hours engaged in this task, I simply could not
continue. I believed I now had all the information I needed.
I made my excuses and walked out even though the day had
not ended. As I turned back for one last look at the killing
room, the floor must have been three feet deep in white
feathers and wings. It reminded me of a snowdrift, except
this snow was soaked in the blood of so many innocent birds.

Christmas, a time for for giving? I don't think so.

DANNY

http://www.arkangelweb.org/features/...bloodyxmas.php


Yep. That's a happy Christmas for some sad scum!


***************************






The logic some people use for not attending church, is used to avoid washing

1.I was forced to as a child.
2.People who make soap are only after your money.
3.I wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.
4.People who wash are hypocrites-they think they are cleaner than everyone else.
5.There are so many different kinds of soap,I can't decide which one is best.
6.I used to wash, but it got boring so I stopped.
7.None of my friends wash.
8.The bathroom is never warm enough in the winter or cool enough in the summer.
9.I'll start washing when I get older and dirtier.
10.I can't spare the time .

On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:19:03 -0000, "Jim Webster"
wrote:


"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

Just to wish everyone a good Christmas, hope the Turkey/Goose/fowl of
choice
lives up to your expectations

'Another Bloody Christmas. Inside the Bootiful World of the
Turkey Industry.

Arkangel. 24 December 2006.

Certain facts regarding the obtaining of evidence of animal
abuse have been withheld from this article for obvious
reasons,

yep we made them up as we went along,

You couldn't make stuff like that up, especially where people like you
are involved!


***************************






The logic some people use for not attending church, is used to avoid washing

1.I was forced to as a child.
2.People who make soap are only after your money.
3.I wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.
4.People who wash are hypocrites-they think they are cleaner than everyone else.
5.There are so many different kinds of soap,I can't decide which one is best.
6.I used to wash, but it got boring so I stopped.
7.None of my friends wash.
8.The bathroom is never warm enough in the winter or cool enough in the summer.
9.I'll start washing when I get older and dirtier.
10.I can't spare the time .