TAKE ACTION: A heartbreaking Compassion Over Killing (COK) undercover investigation has just revealed horrific cruelty inside a high-speed chicken slaughterhouse. Sign our new petition urging the USDA to end high-speed horrors TODAY!
A COK investigator recently worked inside an Amick Farms slaughterhouse, which operates under a dangerous USDA high-speed slaughter program, killing more than one million birds per week. At Amick, violence and critical errors were rampant as workers struggled to keep up: The investigator saw birds being punched, shoved, and thrown down the recklessly fast-paced kill line. Other birds slowly drowned in the electrified stunning baths during equipment breakdowns, and dead birds were thrown away like trash. COK also documented “red birds,” with blood visible under their skin—a sign that they were scalded alive.
Amick is one of 24 chicken plants that the USDA allows to run at incredibly high speeds. The National Chicken Council recently petitioned the USDA to completely eliminate any speed caps for plants nationwide—and although the USDA denied that request after hearing from more than 100,000 concerned consumers, it is now granting waivers to individual plants to run at up to 175 birds per minute, like at Amick Farms. Up until last month, there were 20 increased speed plants, but the government recently gave four more individual waivers, with plans to give out more.
Alarmingly, this is the second time in just a few years that a COK investigation has exposed the horrors of high-speed slaughter. COK’s 2015 investigation of Quality Pork Processors, a high-speed pig slaughter plant supplying Hormel Foods, revealed pigs shocked, dragged, and pulled to the kill floor; pigs covered in feces and pus-filled abscesses processed for human consumption with a USDA seal of approval; and much more. More than a quarter million of you have spoken out against these high-speed horrors, and we hand-delivered your signatures to the USDA’s offices this past spring.
Yet instead of abolishing this inhumane and dangerous program, the USDA drives it forward.
P.S. The easiest way you can protect birds, and all animals, from this cruelty is by trying healthy and delicious vegan eating. Click here to get started—and enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card, plus get FREE TryVeg chicken-free recipes AND money-saving coupons from vegan retailers!