According to Vegetarians International Voice for Animals an estimated ten million turkeys are killed at Christmas. Turkeys are a popular item for the traditional Christmas dinner in countries all over the world, including the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Honduras, Ice Land, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, and the UK.

Turkeys that are raised for food endure some of the most intense pain and suffering imaginable. Currently most of the animals that are used as food are now reared on factory farms. Factory farming is the practice of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory. These birds are kept in such dire places, deprived of sunlight, fresh air, or free movement. Over-crowding and grossly inhumane conditions make disease and injury common-place. As many as 25,000 turkeys can be kept in one shed. The turkeys are kept on a litter floor, and according to the Farm Animal Welfare Network, at the end of the growing period, as much as 80 per cent of the litter is feces.

 Conditions are so bad that many animals do not even survive to make it to the slaughterhouse. In the UK, close to 3 million turkeys die every year in such settings.

Stress-induced cannibalism and self-mutilation also take place. Other birds are painfully debeaked without anesthetic. The beaks are cut off with a red-hot blade or with clippers. Debeaking is done to prevent injury to one another, such injuries would occur as so many birds are literally compressed together in small confinement areas that stress-induced aggression is common.

According to Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, beak trimming is painful and can result in permanent pain. Research at the AFRC Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research, Edinburgh, indicates that debeaking results in chronic pain similar to 'phantom limb pain' in human amputees. Birds have been observed, over a 56 week period, to show signs of behaviour associated with long-term chronic pain and depression, following partial beak amputation. ("Behavioral Evidence for Persistent Pain Following Partial Beak Amputation in Chickens" - Michael Gentle et al, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 27 (1990) 149-157).

Other turkeys develop horrific physical deformities as a result of genetic alternation. The birds also endure terrible acts of abuse, which has been documented by several animal rights/animal welfare groups. Such acts include being kicked, punched, thrown around, stomped on and more.

For the turkeys that do survive such horrendous conditions, they are simply shipped out to the slaughterhouses to be killed. At the slaughterhouse the birds are hung upside down with their feet in shackles for up to three minutes before they are stunned (DEFRA, 2007).

This Christmas give the gift of compassion and understanding. Take turkey off of your Christmas dinner menu and go vegetarian!

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