The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving
Suki Falconberg Ph.D.
November 17, 2006
The turkey on your table went through a lot before she got there. She was ‘factory farmed.’ This involves procedures that can be defined as extreme torture. Within the first three hours of her birth, the baby turkey had three-toes chopped off and she was debeaked, all without anesthetic. Debeaking involves amputating the highly sensitive beak tissue with a hot blade, and it causes life-long pain and suffering. Both debeaking and toe amputation are regarded as ‘necessary,’ so the birds will not peck and claw each to death out of misery and frustration in the warehouses where they ‘live’ until slaughter.
Factory farming, also called ‘intensive confinement,’ crowds thousands of birds together in large barns where they stand in their own excrement, breathing in the ammonia fumes caused by the build up. They live their entire lives under these conditions, which cause ulcerated feet, destroyed lungs, and eyes burned out by the fumes—not to mention emotional frustration, stress, and eventually insanity. They’re also fed a steady diet of antibiotics, to keep them alive in their hell long enough to get them to slaughter.
Growth hormones cause them to develop so fast that their bones and feet can’t bear the weight. The lameness is so severe that they must crawl around on their wings in order to reach food and water. Other birds trample the weakest ones and all of these creatures are incredibly sick for their whole lives. If you could imagine being shot up with massive hormones doses and force-fed antibiotics all the time, it’s not a recipe for much bodily joy in life.
The debeaking mentioned earlier also makes it difficult for the bird to eat properly, or to preen herself. If you have seen birds in the wild--those humble, beautiful pigeons, for example, who so gracefully and generously share living space with us—you will note what pleasure they take in grooming and preening. To be deprived of this simple, essential activity, along with no sunlight, no freedom of movement, no air to breathe but that which blisters the lungs—this is an abomination which we humans have visited on these birds.
The only mercy is that their lifespan is brief: within 3 to 5 months, the bird, engineered to grow at an abnormal pace, is ready to slaughter. ‘Stunning’ by electricity, before throat cutting, is supposedly ‘humane,’ at least the poultry industry calls it this—‘humane slaughter.’ We humans are good at inventing oxymorons. In truth, the electricity razors through the birds’ eyes, eardrums, and hearts, causing unbearable pain.
I have seen videos shot in turkey barns. Workers beat the birds with bars, just for the fun of it, as the poor things desperately try to crawl and scramble away on their wings. Birds constantly rub their burned-out eyes with their wings; the corneas look all lacerated and raw.
I visited a sanctuary with some rescued turkeys. The poor creatures had been engineered into such grotesquerie that they were barely recognizable as turkeys: huge bodies on crippled feet. Made by Dr. Frankenstein—us. Maybe it’s symbolic that we humans are the Dr. Frankenstein’s of the animal world. Maybe it is an effort to exorcise the monster within.
Those grotesque and pitiful rescued turkeys at least had a few weeks of life in a peaceful place, where they were cared for tenderly, until their hearts gave out—severe heart and lung problems are endemic among these captive, engineered populations of birds, brought on by being forced to grow too large too fast. Just as their feet cannot support their weight, their engorged hearts cannot support their bodies, and they burst inside them.
It is a sad picture. Turkeys in the wild shelter their babies with their wings. They don’t crawl around on them, crippled. Turkey babies are protected under those big, strong wings. Factory farmed turkeys never even know their mothers.
Turkeys in the wild are large and beautiful and proud, with eyes full of light and life.
The Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving is seductive. All these pious salt-of-the-earth Americans, sitting in prayer and feast around the dinner table, laden with its farm bounty, everything shining and haloed and cosy and warm. Breadbasket of the country. Cheerful red tablecloth. Home-made curtains at the window, showcasing a farmland landscape, wood piled high for the fireplace. It is a picture of spiritual bounty as well.
At the center of the table is the turkey—looking all brown and basted and shining, shining like the spiritual bounty in the faces of the salt-of-the-earth Americans.
All I know is that you can’t build any kind of spirituality on the misery of other beings.
It is taken for granted, the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving, apparently even by those with some knowledge of the misery. I remember seeing a movie with Richard Gere, who is a vegetarian, and a Buddhist who lobbies for spiritual peace, sitting at just such a table, with the turkey in the center. No peace for that turkey.
Vegetarians live longer than meat eaters. We have fewer diseases. We eat in peace because we know we’re not torturing anything.
Sources: I took my material from the United Poultry Concerns website. You can also find information at PETA, Farm Sanctuary, Viva! (a UK group), and COK (Compassion Over Killing).
Factory farming, also called ‘intensive confinement,’ crowds thousands of birds together in large barns where they stand in their own excrement, breathing in the ammonia fumes caused by the build up. They live their entire lives under these conditions, which cause ulcerated feet, destroyed lungs, and eyes burned out by the fumes—not to mention emotional frustration, stress, and eventually insanity. They’re also fed a steady diet of antibiotics, to keep them alive in their hell long enough to get them to slaughter.
Growth hormones cause them to develop so fast that their bones and feet can’t bear the weight. The lameness is so severe that they must crawl around on their wings in order to reach food and water. Other birds trample the weakest ones and all of these creatures are incredibly sick for their whole lives. If you could imagine being shot up with massive hormones doses and force-fed antibiotics all the time, it’s not a recipe for much bodily joy in life.
The debeaking mentioned earlier also makes it difficult for the bird to eat properly, or to preen herself. If you have seen birds in the wild--those humble, beautiful pigeons, for example, who so gracefully and generously share living space with us—you will note what pleasure they take in grooming and preening. To be deprived of this simple, essential activity, along with no sunlight, no freedom of movement, no air to breathe but that which blisters the lungs—this is an abomination which we humans have visited on these birds.
The only mercy is that their lifespan is brief: within 3 to 5 months, the bird, engineered to grow at an abnormal pace, is ready to slaughter. ‘Stunning’ by electricity, before throat cutting, is supposedly ‘humane,’ at least the poultry industry calls it this—‘humane slaughter.’ We humans are good at inventing oxymorons. In truth, the electricity razors through the birds’ eyes, eardrums, and hearts, causing unbearable pain.
I have seen videos shot in turkey barns. Workers beat the birds with bars, just for the fun of it, as the poor things desperately try to crawl and scramble away on their wings. Birds constantly rub their burned-out eyes with their wings; the corneas look all lacerated and raw.
I visited a sanctuary with some rescued turkeys. The poor creatures had been engineered into such grotesquerie that they were barely recognizable as turkeys: huge bodies on crippled feet. Made by Dr. Frankenstein—us. Maybe it’s symbolic that we humans are the Dr. Frankenstein’s of the animal world. Maybe it is an effort to exorcise the monster within.
Those grotesque and pitiful rescued turkeys at least had a few weeks of life in a peaceful place, where they were cared for tenderly, until their hearts gave out—severe heart and lung problems are endemic among these captive, engineered populations of birds, brought on by being forced to grow too large too fast. Just as their feet cannot support their weight, their engorged hearts cannot support their bodies, and they burst inside them.
It is a sad picture. Turkeys in the wild shelter their babies with their wings. They don’t crawl around on them, crippled. Turkey babies are protected under those big, strong wings. Factory farmed turkeys never even know their mothers.
Turkeys in the wild are large and beautiful and proud, with eyes full of light and life.
The Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving is seductive. All these pious salt-of-the-earth Americans, sitting in prayer and feast around the dinner table, laden with its farm bounty, everything shining and haloed and cosy and warm. Breadbasket of the country. Cheerful red tablecloth. Home-made curtains at the window, showcasing a farmland landscape, wood piled high for the fireplace. It is a picture of spiritual bounty as well.
At the center of the table is the turkey—looking all brown and basted and shining, shining like the spiritual bounty in the faces of the salt-of-the-earth Americans.
All I know is that you can’t build any kind of spirituality on the misery of other beings.
It is taken for granted, the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving, apparently even by those with some knowledge of the misery. I remember seeing a movie with Richard Gere, who is a vegetarian, and a Buddhist who lobbies for spiritual peace, sitting at just such a table, with the turkey in the center. No peace for that turkey.
Vegetarians live longer than meat eaters. We have fewer diseases. We eat in peace because we know we’re not torturing anything.
Sources: I took my material from the United Poultry Concerns website. You can also find information at PETA, Farm Sanctuary, Viva! (a UK group), and COK (Compassion Over Killing).
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