Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other birds classified as poultry represent 9.6 billion of the approximately 9.8 billion animals slaughtered annually in the United States. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has excluded these animals from the protections of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and fails to promote humane handling regulations under the Poultry Products Inspection Act.
Without these protections, birds classified as poultry are subjected to abuses that would warrant significant consequences under federal law if the victims were cows or pigs. The USDA's own records indicate that nearly half a million chickens are boiled alive every year at slaughterhouses when their necks miss the blade and they are dropped into the scalding tank, fully conscious.
Please add your voice to ours in speaking out against the hideous abuses of these poor birds. Send a message and tell the USDA to improve regulations on their behalf.
Dear Secretary Rollins,
USDA records indicate that nearly half a million chickens are boiled alive in U.S. slaughterhouses every year when they are dropped, fully conscious, into tanks of scalding water. Countless birds are run over with forklifts, thrown alive into trash bins, or arrive at the slaughterhouse frozen to their cages. Others have their legs broken as they're jammed into shackles on the slaughter line.
No living being should suffer like this.
Please take immediate action to end the hideous abuses taking place in poultry slaughterhouses--starting by extending critical protections to chickens, turkeys, and other birds under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and Twenty-Eight Hour Law. Thank you for giving your immediate attention to this urgent matter.
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Sincerely,
[Your name here]
