Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman Read Free Book Online Page B

calls for animals to be “stunned” before they are slaughtered. For cows, this means getting a metal bolt shot into the skull and then retracted.
    When done properly, using working equipment, this renders the cow unconscious. But time is money, and slaughterhouses operate at lightning speeds, some killing one animal every three seconds. Because thousands of frightened, struggling cows are not easy to stun, it is extremely common for a “stunner” to miss his mark.92 Panicked hogs, also difficult to “hit,” are stunned with an electric device. And if the jolt is too high, it bruises and bloodies the hogs’ flesh (bad for business). Because business comes first on factory farms, the jolt is lowered, despite the fact that it doesn’t properly stun the hogs.93
    Stunned or not, cows and hogs are then “strung up” from the ceil-ing by a chain attached to their leg(s).94 In theory, while they dangle there, they are supposed to be unconscious. But often they are fully conscious, struggling, screaming, and fearfully staring at the workers while they have their throats stabbed open.95 Next, they travel along a “bleed rail,” where they should bleed to death. But again, these large, frightened, struggling, conscious animals are difficult targets and the “stickers” (workers who cut their throats) don’t always get a “good cut.” Before cows can bleed to death, they are sent on their way to the “head-skinners,” where the skin is sliced from their heads while they are still conscious.96 Of course, this is excruciatingly painful, and the cows kick and struggle frantically. To avoid getting injured by the struggling animal, workers will sometimes sever the spinal cord with a knife blow to the back of the head. This paralyzes the animal below the neck so that the worker is safe. But these cows can still feel their skin being sliced away from their faces.97 Next, their legs and head are chopped off, their entrails removed from their bodies, and then, finally, they are split in half. Often before hogs can bleed to death, they are dunked fully conscious into 140-degree scalding water to remove the hair from their bodies.98
    Chickens, because they are so overcrowded and stressed, frequently peck each other and factory farm workers, so the ends of their beaks are literally chopped off their faces. Even though they currently comprise more than 95 percent of all animals slaughtered for food, Congress exempted chickens (and turkeys) from the Humane Slaughter Act, so there is no requirement to stun them99 (not that it would matter, anyway). But because it is easier to handle chickens that aren’t fighting for their lives, their heads are sometimes dragged through a water bath that has been electrically charged. This paralyzes the birds, but does not render them unconscious.100 They are snatched up, shackled upside down, and their throats are slashed by machine at the rate of thousands per hour.101 Next, they are dunked in scalding water to loosen their feathers. Again, they are supposed to be dead at this point, but if the machine misses its mark, or the chickens haven’t bled to death, they are “boiled” alive. Then they are placed into a series of machines that literally beat their feathers off of them, still alive and having just been scalded.102 All the while, they are being handled like rubber toys: grabbed by their necks, feet, or wings and thrown around. You get the idea.
    In egg-laying factories, male baby chicks are completely useless to farmers because they don’t produce eggs. So workers snatch up chicks speeding by on a conveyer belt, quickly glance at their under-sides, and then toss the “useless” males into the garbage. Yes.
    Literally. Millions of male baby chicks are piled on top of each other in garbage dumpsters—left to die.
    In her book, Slaughterhouse, Gail Eisnitz, chief investigator for the Humane Farming Association, interviewed dozens of slaughterhouse workers throughout the country.