So, I guess the anxious amongst us should be worrying about bird flu now? For me the story stuck for a rather different reason.
The report in the Telegraph had this sad little picture of a fledging Turkey in the timeline it displayed of their short lives. It didn't sit well with what was clearly a factory production line approach to getting them from egg to supermarket freezer. And then we had the rather unpleasant description of their gassing in crates with argon. 50,000 of the poor buggers so far. Another hundred thousand to go. Sounds a bit horrendous doesn't it? A black day in Turkey history?
However, rather better I reckon than being dragged through an electric bath to stun them (OW!!! That would certainly stun me!) and then having their throats cut though which is apparently how they are slaughtered. How grim is that? Where do our agriculturalists dream this stuff up? May be the bird flu batch are the lucky ones.
You're probably wondering if I'm some PVC shoe-wearing vegetarian. Fact is I'm not. I enjoy my Christmas turkey as much as the next person. I did have a phase in veggie-ville in my early twenties thanks to an article on cow slaughter which similarly appalled me. However, any associated principles simpy failed to contend with the smell of a bacon sarnie in a girlfriend's kitchen a few years later. I just couldn't give it up now.
Still, think I'll pass on explaining how my kids food gets to the table for quite a while yet!!
loiswakeman
I agree entirely. I assume gassing with argon is done to save the dispatchers having to take extra precautions - it must feel like drowning to the birds I imagine. But hey, they are only 120,000 bits of disposable underage meat - not sentient creatures.
Factory farming is the reason I only eat meat sometimes - I save up to buy humanely reared meat from England and avoid supermarket cheap cuts as far as possible.
I read yesterday that vaccination against bird flu - which only becomes effective at 7 weeks - will always be pointless, as most chickens are slaughtered at 8 weeks. No wonder the poor things stagger about on weak legs as they try to cope with sudden weight gain. Ugh.
You can read more ghastly details here: I wonder how many of the welfare provisions were used - 0 perhaps?