AR-News: Inside the Chicken Industry

[GK]

United Poultry Concerns * PO Box 150 * Machipongo, VA 23405
Phone: 757-678-7875 * Fax: 757-678-5070 * www.UPC-online.org

September 24, 2003

This letter, by former Tyson chicken slaughter plant employee, Virgil
Butler, was mistakenly omitted from UPC’s website posting of the Summer-Fall
2003 PoultryPress, Volume 13, No. 2. It has now been added, but to be sure
that you read it, we are sending it to you now. The letter appears on page
11 of PoultryPress and can be read on line at
http://www.upc-online.org/fall2003/index.html
Thank you very much. UPC Editors
___________________________________________________________

Inside the Chicken Industry

In the Spring issue of PoultryPress (www.upc-online.org) we ran Virgil
Butler’s testimony describing his employment at a Tyson chicken
slaughterhouse from 1997 to 2002. Mr. Butler wrote the following letter to
the San Francisco Chronicle in response to Karen Davis’s commentary on the
McDonald’s antibiotics policy.

Will the McDonald’s policy cure cruelty to chickens?
By Virgil Butler

I don’t believe so. I worked at a Tyson chicken slaughter plant in Grannis,
AR (a supplier for McDonald’s, KFC, etc.) for a number of years and a few
other plants as well. I caught chickens from the houses as a teenager before
that. I am intimately familiar with the poultry business and the living
conditions of the chickens.

I have seen the filth, death, and disease that breed from these conditions
as well as the outright abuse the chickens endure from the workers. What I
have seen is bad enough that my wife and I no longer eat chicken.

I have seen the chickens blinded by the ammonia fumes that build up in the
houses. I have had the ammonia burns on my arms from handling the chickens
that were coated with ammonia. My exposure lasted only for a night’s work
before I could wash it off. The chickens had to live that way.

I’ve seen chickens starve in the houses because their feet were stuck in the
muck. I’ve seen the catchers stomp, kick, and slam chickens on the ground. I
’ve seen them “cull the runts” by pulling their heads off. I’ve seen all the
roosters of a breeder house be killed by having their heads bashed by a
metal pipe, since they were too big for our plant to hang, unlike the spent
hens. These spent breeder chickens don’t go to McDonald’s directly, but they
are a by-product of the industry. These chickens are fed to other chickens
as well as to your pet dog.

What about all the chickens that don’t live long enough to make it to the
slaughter plant because they have died of disease or been killed by cruelty?
Technically McDonald’s would be able to say that their chickens didn’t
suffer the cruelty that killed these chickens. They are wrong. Their
chickens suffered the same conditions and risks, but were unfortunate enough
to survive long enough (a couple of months) to have to suffer the final
cruelty of all, the slaughter.
At the slaughter plant I’ve seen birds scalded alive, pulled apart, and
blown up with dry ice bombs for laughs. I’ve seen them run over by
forklifts. These issues have nothing to do with antibiotics.

These points don’t list anywhere near the routine cruelty I have seen
through the years, but they would not be addressed by McDonald’s in this new
policy. This new policy might ban antibiotics used as growth-enhancers, but
as long as farmers raise the birds in the conditions they do, they will have
to give the birds antibiotics just to keep them alive.

Virgil Butler

What Can I Do?

Eat vegan AND urge the chicken industry to set specific welfare standards
eliminating the crowding, poor hygiene, forced rapid growth, and worker
abuse of chickens. Request a written reply.

George Watts, President
National Chicken Council
1015 15th Street, NW, Suite 930
Washington DC 20005-2605
Ph: 202-296-2622
Fax: 202-293-4005
Email: Gwatts at ChickenUSA.org
            Rlobb at ChickenUSA.org


United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes the
compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.
http://www.upc-online.org