Ok, I grew up on a farm in Iowa. We had chickens. When it came time to butcher the chickens the method of killing the chicken was an axe on a stump with a couple of old bent nails to hold the chicken in place.
Ok, fast forward. I was in Sedalia, Mo over the weekend. There is a Tyson plant somewhere around Sedalia, as I saw no less that 4 Semi truckloads of chickens presumably heading to their final destination. Now, for the question. How do they do the butchering at a place like this? Surely it can’t still be done by the old axe.
Granted, PETA’s involvement in the site may suggest the above presentation is a bit sensationalised, but the general methods and conditio0ns surely exist.
Interesting. I envisioned more of a mass guillotine. Maybe some kind of neck clamp that sliced the heads off.
I know, I know, it’s a pretty sick thing to think about but when I saw those truckloads of chickens I just had to wonder…
What troubles me is how I can still eat chicken knowing this. Am I a shameless, weak-minded monster? Beacuase that’s the only explanation I can come up with…but dammit! Thay just so dang YUMMY!
We solve that problem by raising and slaughtering our own chickens. I realize that not everyone has the luxury of country living and the fortitude to enact the butchering. My s.o. does the head chopping and I do the rest. Nothing reminds you so poignantly of the gravity of the act of eating meat as killing the animals yourself. Plus the chickens get to live a decent (we hope) life while they’re here and are turned into food with (hopefully) a minimum of pain and suffering.
I spent a day in a chicken plant years ago. Didn’t eat poultry for months after, but I got over it.
Think assembly line. Chickens are placed in “stirrups” from which they hang upside down. They are transported along, get sprayed with salt water then they hit an electrical thing that shocks/stuns them. They then (while unconcious) are decapitated. From there, they move onto a defeathering unit with rubber fingers that pull off most feathers.