The Reality of a Slaughterhouse

Blood flowing, pooling and drying into a sticky ooze mixing with piles and stains of excrement containing E-coli. An animal on it’s side with a hole in it’s head suffering bone shattering muscle spasms. Vomit and bile splatter as they drip from the mouth of an animal suspended above. The panicked footsteps of an injured worker slosh by and a dull knife clanks as it hits concrete. And this is only the floor.

Whether from the standpoint of animal advocacy, worker’s rights, or consumer safety the view of a contemporary slaughterhouse promises to horrify even the most insensitive of us.

Every meatloaf recipe ever written has forgotten step one. It should read something like this: “When using the captive-bolt method of stunning, it is essential that you bleed the animal immediately to ensure rapid death. The easiest way to bleed an animal is to cut the throat completely from ear to ear, exposing the spine and ensuring all major blood vessels are cut. Due to the unusual blood supply to the brain in cattle, it is worthwhile performing a chest stick (after the throat cut), by inserting the knife into the chest just above the heart to sever the blood vessels where they leave the heart and to ensure a rapid loss of consciousness. The signs of an effective bleed out are rapid blood loss for around two minutes. Once the animal is bled out and the kicking has ceased, dressing may take place.”

Those instructions were taken from a pamphlet on do it yourself animal slaughter. As a slaughterhouse worker holding down what the U.S Department of Labor repeatedly labels as one of the most hazardous job options, you would repeat those steps dozens of times throughout your workday. You would also witness how 1 out of every 20 times the “stunning” isn’t effective and leaves the animal writhing in unimaginable pain. The captive bolt gun used as the first step in the slaughter of a cow is a device that forces a bolt fired by pressurized air into the brain of a cow. Under ideal circumstances that rarely exist it is known for about 95% accuracy in delivering painless immobilization. This leaves 1 out of every 20 cows with an immeasurably painful, seizure inflicting hole in it’s head as it is dragged to be hung upside down to face the, more than likely, dull knife that will be inserted into it’s throat and heart. Don’t forget that this is under ideal and almost nonexistent conditions; what actually happens has been witnessed to be much worse.

The floor of a pig slaughterhouse is equally as gory and the treatment of the animals is equally as morally offensive. Replace the captive bolt gun with an oversized pair of tongs that are fitted upon the faces of the pigs. An electric shock is delivered through the tongs in order to render the animal into a “passive state” (aka. violent seizure). Slaughterhouse workers are known to “cheat” and reduce the legally mandated duration of the electric shock in order to boost efficiency making an already horrifying and painful process even worse. The animal is then sent off hanging upside down still alive and suffering greatly to face the same treatment from a dull knife that was mentioned in step one of our meatloaf recipe.

In a slaughterhouse designed for the large scale factory style of murder that is reserved for chickens, turkeys, and other birds the idea that forgoing red meat and only consuming “white meat” is a more humane choice is stripped away in a fashion rivaling any previously mentioned gore. The birds, generally in about the 7th week of a potentially 7-year life span, are slaughtered in a frighteningly automated process. The animals are hung upside down by their feet and dragged through a pool of electrically charged water in order to “stun” them. Many animals do not get fully stunned and are left terrified and fully conscious. Next they face an automated cutting blade that is supposed to cut their neck and drain them of their life. This is a horrific, bloody and most of the time, fatal scene, but not all animals die at this point. Countless animals miss the neck blade because they are jumping and throwing themselves around trying to free themselves from the leg holding devices. Electrified and with throats slit many survive to face the next stop on the conveyor belt which will consist of being boiled alive. Imagine being stuck hanging upside down, being electrocuted, being cut up, and then being boiled alive in a tank. This happens every second, every minute, every hour of every day. Can you even fathom this?

Cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals are suffering through every horror mentioned here right now as you read this. These death factories operate nearly nonstop and offer countless terrified and suffering individuals the heartless, painful and brutal extermination described. If you eat meat, dairy products or eggs you are to blame. If you stop buying it, they will stop supplying it. You have a hand in every single act of violence and that hand is dripping with blood.

Over the hill there’s a factory
With walls a mile high
And behind those walls lies a killing floor
Where thousands of animals die
So welcome to the factory farm
Where murder means production
It’s the product of supply and demand
Supported by your consumption

And so you swallow the lies
And end their lives
But could you face this horror?
Could you stand and watch as the blade slides across their throat
Their body is hung upside down and they bleed to death before you?
Could you stand and watch as the bolt drives through their skull?
Watch them as they flail about and not have it affect you?
Could you stand and watch as they beat an animal to death?
A full sized axe smashed against its skull until there’s nothing left
How the fuck can you stand and watch as a life becomes a product
Or as a child is ripped from its mother to become the next to receive this?

These are lives, not products
These are cows, not beef
These are pigs
Not pork
These are chickens, not poultry
These are calves, not veal
These are lives, not products
These are animals, just as we
And they deserve to be free
Not the voiceless victims of a murderous process
Where we claim superiority
It’s up to every one of us to stop this murder
And it starts on an individual level
Let’s make the choice to raise our voice
And not let up until they tear every last factory down!

From the moment of birth
Their hardships begin
They’ll be wanted for their flesh, their eggs, their milk, their fur, their skin
They’ll be chained into veal crates
Or cages stacked up high
And depending on their gender some are simply left to die
Fed a steady diet or rendered waste from their own kind
They’ll be injected with hormones and drugs to keep them all alive
Confined and forced to inhale the stench of growing piles of waste
Some will become violent and neurotic due to lack of space

And the animals raped for their eggs and milk—when their productive life is through
They’ll be shipped off to slaughter in hopes that
They’ll be consumed by me and you
Paraded through the slaughterhouse where they’ll soon be known as meat
The stench of blood and entrails from the floor beneath their feet
They’ll see the ones before them and
Hear their final cries of pain
Imagine the terror in their minds as they watch their families
Get slain

Their blood is cursing through your veins
Suffer their screams
Suffer their pain
Remove the blindfold from your eyes
You have no right to take their lives
Their blood is cursing through your veins
Suffer their screams
Suffer their pain
Remove the blindfold from your eyes
You have no right to take their lives

In the name of convenience they are victims of greed
Why support torture for a product you don’t need?
Stop for a moment, look in their eyes
Watch what you are guilty of
Watch the way they die

Few of us know what it is to fight
When you’ve already struggled with all of your might
Few of us know what it is to fight
When it’s a matter of death or a matter of life
Few of us know what it is to fight
Against neglect and abuse that is kept out of sight
Few of us know what it is to fight
When you have no defense against the blade of the knife

—”In The Name of Convenience”, Contravene