USDA proposes faster poultry processing lines; critics say more animals will be inhumanely killed

Each year at poultry processing plants, 825,000 chickens and 18,000 turkeys are boiled alive, because the rapid pace keeps employees from making sure the birds have been killed, but that hasn't stopped the Department of Agriculture from "finalizing a proposal that would allow poultry companies to accelerate their processing lines, with the aim of removing pathogens from the food supply and making plants more efficient," Kimberly Kindy reports for The Washington Post. (World News photo)

USDA inspectors say "much of the cruel treatment they witness is tied to the rapid pace at which employees work, flipping live birds upside down and shackling their legs," Kindy writes. "If the birds are not properly secured, they might elude the automated blade and remain alive when they enter the scalder." The USDA's proposal "would revamp inspections in poultry plants and increase the maximum line speed — to 175 birds per minute from 140 in chicken plants and to 55 per minute from 45 in turkey plants." Mohan Raj, a British-based poultry-slaughter expert who helps advise the European Food Safety Authority, told Kindy, “One of the greatest risks for inhumane treatment is line speed. You can’t always stop the abuse at these speeds. It’s so fast, you blink and the bird has moved away from you.”

The slaughterhouses are designed to render birds unconscious "before their necks are cut and their bodies are dropped in the scalding tank. This is often achieved by running the birds’ heads through an electrified water bath to stun them," Kindy writes. "But the low voltage used — about half of what is required in the European Union — and the high speed mean the birds sometimes do not lose consciousness, according to several poultry-slaughter experts and recent academic studies."

More than 35 percent of citations by the USDA from January 2011 to July 2012 were for birds being boiled alive, according to the animal welfare groups Animal Welfare Institute and Farm Sanctuary, Kindy writes. Ten percent of the citations were for birds being removed from the line because their necks were not properly cut before entering the scald tank. (Read more)