The brief, painful lifetime of your Thanksgiving turkey

The United States is the world’s largest turkey producer and the biggest exporter of turkey merchandise. Its residents additionally eat an ever-increasing quantity of those birds. In 1970, Individuals ate simply over 8lbs (3.6kg) per particular person yearly; by 2021, the Nationwide Turkey Federation stories that determine had almost doubled to greater than 15lbs.

That demand and trendy breeding have reworked turkeys. They’ve been bred to placed on weight rapidly, and at slaughter, the common turkey right now weighs virtually twice as a lot as turkeys did in 1960. The distinction with the speed of progress of untamed turkeys is even better. At 4 months outdated, a male wild turkey will weigh not more than 8lbs, whereas on the similar age, a male turkey selectively bred for meat will weigh 41lbs.

That places an unlimited pressure on their immature leg bones. Professor John Webster, a veterinarian and skilled on the welfare of farmed animals, has studied an analogous drawback in fast-growing chickens and concluded that they’re in ache for the final third of their lives – a state of affairs that has been in contrast with forcing somebody with arthritis of their legs to face up all day lengthy.

Turkeys have much more leg issues than chickens as a result of they’re additionally bred to develop quickly, however as well as, they’re virtually all broad-breasted whites. Birds of this breed have been described as “physiologically unbalanced”. They stroll or stand lower than older breeds, presumably as a result of it’s painful for them to place weight on their legs. A 2013 examine of turkeys at 13 completely different slaughterhouses discovered that 60% had swelling of the foot pad, and 25% had arthritis.

All of those birds are more likely to have skilled ache when strolling or standing. These issues might be prevented by genetic number of the turkeys to be reared – on this case, choosing for slower progress to provide the birds’ legs time to mature sufficiently to bear the load of their our bodies.

However the perspective of the business to such a suggestion was as soon as made clear by Scott Beyer, poultry specialist at Kansas State College, when he wrote in a 2008 paper: “Though a small share of birds could also be predisposed to leg issues, use of extremely chosen fast-growing strains is advisable as a result of financial savings in feed prices and time far outweigh the loss of some birds.”

Economics overrides the struggling of the turkeys, each time. When Beyer referred to “the loss of some birds”, he means the birds whose situation is so dangerous that they die earlier than they’re able to be despatched to slaughter at three or 4 months of age. These deaths are occurring in birds of a species that, when not bred for max breast meat, might dwell for 10 years.

Nor are these deaths so “few” besides relative to the 210m turkeys raised and slaughtered in the US. In line with the US Poultry Trade Handbook, “[turkey] hens normally end with whole mortality of 5–6%, whereas whole tom mortality is 10–12%”, and in response to the US Division of Agriculture, 57% of turkeys slaughtered are toms and 43% hens.

Let’s do the calculations on these numbers, conservatively taking the low finish of the mortality vary. Then we discover that in 2022, producers began out with 133m toms and despatched 119.7m to slaughter. With hens, the figures are 95.1m hatched and 90.3m despatched to slaughter. Placing each sexes collectively tells us that when Beyer dismissed the loss of some birds, he was saying financial savings in feed prices and time outweigh the painful deaths of 18m younger birds.

Along with the leg and foot issues suffered by many turkeys, that examine of 13 slaughterhouses discovered that 30% of them had blisters or different sores on the pores and skin round their breastbone. These “breast buttons”, as they’re referred to as, generally happen in turkeys who spend most of their time mendacity down on their sternum.

One think about inflicting these sores will be the chicken droppings within the litter of sawdust or wooden shavings used to cowl the flooring of business turkey sheds, the place the birds are crammed by the hundreds. The droppings are alkaline, and when there may be moisture within the litter or on the chicken’s pores and skin, it could trigger a caustic burn on the a part of the chicken that’s pressed into it.

So for these intentionally deformed turkeys, there isn’t a escape from ache. In the event that they lie all the way down to keep away from the ache of carrying their heavy, unbalanced our bodies on their arthritic legs and swollen toes, they find yourself with painful sores on their breastbone.

And that’s not all. A Mercy for Animals undercover video reveals turkeys at week 15 of their confinement, a few of whom have clearly been victims of aggression from different turkeys. They’ve in depth bloody wounds of their necks, cracked scalps or are bleeding from their eyes. The investigator reported a few of these issues to the supervisor, who took no motion.

That is what life is like for the birds whose our bodies are on the desk at Thanksgiving.

Excerpted from Contemplate the Turkey. Copyright © 2024 by Peter Singer. Reprinted by permission of Princeton College Press.