When the suggestion was made that I visit a slaughterhouse
to observe first-hand blatant infractions upon the rights of
animals, I was very skeptical. The reason for my skepticism was
that I felt a slaughterhouse did not present an example of
cruelty far enough removed from everyday life to be poignant or
relevant in a discussion of animal rights. I felt that I should
be writing on something a little more esoteric or something
considered cruel or immoral, such as the clubbing to death of
baby seals. I was gravely mistaken. And the fact that what goes
on inside a slaughterhouse is done because of the demand the vast
majority of the American public has for the flesh of other living
beings makes it all the more poignant and relevant.
There is no convenient escape from guilt by association for
what goes on inside a slaughterhouse as there is from the case of
the baby seals in the Arctic. While it is easy for most of us to
refrain from purchasing the goods for which seals were slain --
thus incurring no guilt for their deaths -- most people
willingly (and thoughtlessly) eat the flesh of one type of animal
or another whose life has been terminated within the walls of a
slaughterhouse.
As I stepped from my car in the parking lot of the packing
plant, the combination of sounds and smells emanating from the
corrugated metal structure made me question whether or not this
was something I really wanted to go through with. The first
thing to hit my senses was the sound of cattle -- not the pleas-
ant bucolic mooing one might hear on a stroll down a country lane
next to a small farm, but a rapid, frantic mooing. It was the
kind of mooing I heard during a weekend stay at my uncle's dairy
farm when one of the cows was attacked by stray dogs. Aside from
the noise, the release of adrenaline in her body made the cow
drool, and caused her nose to run so profusely that she briefly
had difficulty breathing. At that moment in the parking lot, I
could only sense discomfort in the sound of the cows, but later I
discovered that each one awaiting slaughter in the chute leading
to the "killing stall" was suffering the same symptoms of terror
I witnessed at my uncle's farm
The second thing I noticed was also a sound. As I walked
toward the building, I heard the strange muffled whine that can
only come from a saw cutting bone still encased in flesh. At
this point I realized that I was not prepared for what I was
about to experience. That feeling was intensified to the point
of nausea when, as I walked closer, I caught my first whiff of
the combination of smells that I would have to endure for the
next few hours: the oddly sickening odor of newly slaughtered
flesh still so warm from the life so recently removed that steam
rises from it; the not so oddly nauseating stench of the sausage
and hot dog meat boilers; and the quiet, cold reeking of flesh
hanging, carcass af- ter carcass, row upon row, in the freezer
storage area. My imagination had prepared me a little bit for
the visual experience, but I was entirely unprepared for the
almost unbearable smell that permeated the entire plant.
After brief "pleasantries" with Jerry, the production
manager of the plant, I was allowed to procede through the
building unguided and at my own pace. I began the tour "where it
all starts", as Jerry put it, in the "kill shed".
I entered the kill shed through a short, tunnel-like hall
through which I could see what I soon learned was the third
butchering station. The kill shed consisted of one room in which
a number of operations are performed by one or two of six
butchers at four stations along the length of the room. In the
kill shed there is also a United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) inspector who examines parts of every animal
who goes through the kill shed.
The first station is the killing station. It is worked by
one man whose job is to herd the animal into the killing stall,
slaughter him or her, and begin the butchering process. This
stage of the process takes about ten minutes for each animal, and
begins with the opening of a heavy steel door that separates the
killing stall from the waiting chute. The man working this
station must then go into a corridor adjacent to the waiting
chute, and prod his next victim into the killing stall with a
high-voltage electric cattle prod. This is the most
time-consuming part of the operation because the cattle are fully
aware of what lies ahead, and are determined not to enter the
killing stall. The physical symptoms of terror were painfully
evident on the faces of each and every animal I saw either in the
actual killing stall or in the waiting chute. During the 40
seconds to a minute that each animal had to wait in the killing
stall before losing consciousness, the terror became visibly more
intense. The animal could smell the blood, and see his or her
former companions in various stages of dismemberment. During the
last few seconds of life, the animal thrashes about the stall as
much as its confines allow. All four of the cows whose deaths I
witnessed strained frantically, futilely, and pathetically
towards the ceiling -- the only direction that was not blocked by
a steel door. Death came in the form of a pneumatic nail gun that
was placed against their heads and fired.
The gun is designed so that the nail never completely leaves
the gun, but simply is blown into the animal's head and then
pulled out by the butcher as the animal collapses. Three of the
four times I saw it used, it did the job on the first try, but
one cow struggled a good deal after collapsing. After the animal
has collapsed, the side of the killing stall is raised, and a
chain is secured to the right hind leg. The cow is then hoisted
by that one leg to a hanging position. At this point, the
butcher drains the body of blood by slitting the cow's throat.
When the blood vessels are severed, there is an amazing torrent
of blood so profuse that the butcher is unable to step aside fast
enough to avoid being covered with it. This steaming torrent of
blood lasts only about 15 seconds, after which the only task left
to the man at the first station is to skin and remove the
animal's head.
At the second station in the kill shed, the headless animal
is dropped to the floor. The body is propped up on the back and
relieved of hooves and, if female, milk sack and udders. At this
time, any urine and feces that didn't drain from the body during
the first few seconds of death now pour freely onto the floor.
The body is then slit down the middle, and the hide is peeled
partially away. A yoke is then hooked to the stumps of the hind
legs, the body is lifted upwards, and the rest of the hide is
pulled past a roller secured to the floor and peeled off. The
animal's body is now at the third station of the kill shed where
it is gutted and then sawed in half -- becoming two "sides of beef".
The sides of beef are sprayed down and weighed at the fourth
and final station of the kill station. They are then placed in
the cooling locker where the residual warmth of life steams away
slowly in preparation for the deep-freeze storage locker. From
the cooling locker, the meat goes into a main storage area where
it is kept for as long as a week. This locker exits to a
butchering area where the sides of beef are reduced to parts for
the supermarket which end up on dining room tables.
The final stop on my tour was the sausage and hot dog
production facilities. It is often said that if you could see
what goes into a hot dog, you'd never eat one eat one again.
Well that adage applies tenfold to the production of sausage.
The most violently nauseating smell that I have ever experienced
was the odor wafting up from the sausage meat boiling vats.
As I left the complex, I was embarrassed about my previous
skepticism, and I encourage anyone who has any of the doubts that
I once possessed to make a visit to a slaughterhouse or spend a
day at a factory farm. I think it would become clear that there
has to be better way to feed ourselves, and that it is our duty
as moral beings to pursue the alternatives.