An annual re-post. Cutout & keep / send-to-your-compassionless compulsive -carnivore-chums  Christmas card ( Work 233 from 2011 )

Photo c. Michael St.Mark 2009

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BERNARD MATTHEWS Guardian report.

” ..The main slaughterhouse is in the plant, which also houses its butchering and deboning facilities. Inside, there are many sights that are not for the faint-hearted.

At 6.30am every day the first turkeys arrive by lorry for slaughter, and are taken straight into a “lairage” or holding area. After being “settled” under dim blue lights that create artificial darkness, they are carried, in the crates they were delivered in – like chests of drawers – along a conveyor belt before being lowered into the unit in which their short lives will come to a swift and painless end.

Controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) renders the birds unconscious within 10 seconds due to lack of oxygen; two minutes later they are dead (?)

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The freshly killed ( ? ) still-feathered turkeys then start on a highly mechanised process during which they are scalded, plucked, eviscerated, decapitated, trussed, packaged and labelled…

First, the birds’ feet are turned to point the same way before they are shackled and raised up onto a mechanised line that takes them on their journey to becoming a “turkey product”. The two main arteries in their necks are cut by hand and the blood drained, before they are sent towards the automated plucking machines, which extract the feathers with Wallace-and-Gromit style “rubber fingers”. The unpleasant smell that permeates the air comes from the damp feathers, but staff apparently get used to it… ”

Abattoir workers playing “Boot the Turkey”

” People would be horrified if they saw the reality of factory farms. You cannot describe the environment. They should think about the conditions these animals live in not to mention their own health before buying or indeed consuming factory-farmed meat products.”

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Links to Work No. 544; Peppa Pig Advent Calender – countdown to slaughter.

” Dada is essentially the search for a new morality ” – Richard Huelsenbeck