Are all slaughter houses portrayed as PETA portrays them?

Question

Naturally, killing an animal is cruel; yes. But there is a difference of killing quickly versus torture and mutilation. So does PETA over-dramatize the meat industries form of killing? Or do all slaughter-houses torture and mutilate for killing?

Answer 1

PETA has lost all credibility with me. I am a meat eater but don't wish cruelty on any animal. I am sure that there are some slaughter houses that are crueler than others. A productive way of fighting those practices would be to support methods that address the cruelty issues that the masses can relate to. Otherwise, your ideas are dismissed as ravings of lunacy if your only endgame is that the world stop eating meat.

Answer 2

Some slaughterhouses use Controlled Atmosphere Killing. This method is more humane because the animals are placed in containers and then gassed. (The usual method involves shackling live birds, running them through an electrically charged bath of water to immobilize them, slitting their throats with a machine, and defeathering them in tanks of scalding-hot water.)

Overall, though, PETA's videos are representative of what goes on in slaughterhouses. PETA's not the only animal advocacy group out there and organizations like Mercy for Animals, Compassion Over Killing, Compassionate Consumers, etc. have done investigations and documented the same kinds of abuses.

Answer 3

Well, no, some are a little better than others, but all are cruel to some degree. Even small-time farms that do their own on-site animal slaughter could be seen as cruel, it just depends how much pain and death you are willing to tolerate an animal to go through just so you can eat their corpse. The answer for me? None. I don't eat meat, period.

EDIT: My aunt has an average dairy farm, and my grandmother raises pigs, chickens, cows, geese, ducks, etc. I grew up on a farm and I have seen animals raised in the best conditions, like they ought to be, and then killed as quickly and painlessly as possible. And still, it bothered me, and I became a vegan. Besides, the meat that you buy in stores is rarely to never from that type of farm - it's from a more heartless, corporate, profit-over-humanity type place.

Answer 4

I don't always agree with PETA. I'm sure they want to make their videos look as horrifying as possible to try to get their point across. After all, it's their money. Sure it's manipulative, but I don't think PETA claims it isn't.

But I can't imagine a slaughterhouse video that I could watch that would make me say "hey, it ain't so bad, guess I'll start eating meat now. Those pigs seem to really enjoy getting smacked with a sledge hammer (or whatever they do now). I hope they kill me that way, looks like fun."

Do any meat companies produce slaughterhouse videos to be viewed by the general public?

Answer 5

Of course there are some slaughterhouses that are more cruel/less cruel than others and certainly small farms are not going to be as awful as big slaughterhouses. But the places where meat get s pumped out in huge numbers speed their procedures up so fast that animals ARE frequently not killed before they go in scalding tanks or have their skin ripped off them. Even if crap like that happens a quarter of the time or even once in a thousand, is that really acceptable to people???

Well, I don't see the meat industry or anyone who is pro-meat coming out with their own videos showing how humane slaughterhouses are and specifically debunking the things that some groups who don't like animal cruelty have accused them of. People say "Oh, it's not true" or "They make it up" or "They have to film hundreds of hours to find anything bad happening" - then prove it! Go undercover and get your own footage and show us how wrong we all are. I have a feeling you'll come out of the experience singing a different tune.

Can people just walk in to a slaughterhouse and request a tour on the spot? Try it!

People who think that the kind of footage PETA and other animal rights group (read: people who simply don't like seeing animals TORTURED) put out there is just worst-case scenarios and that it hardly ever happens is seriously in denial and I don't blame them because it's horrendous to think that we, as a species, would make a practice of putting so many animals through so much pain and fear. But ignoring it or denying it doesn't help anything, especially your karma!

Answer 6

No matter what way you look at it, slaughter houses are terrible places, and yes, l believe that PETA portrays it very well. It is easier for us all to close our eyes to it, but nevertheless, cruelty goes on, as one person said here the kill is done so fast that some animals are not dead before they are skinned, l, myself, shudder to think of it. And we say other countries are barbaric, if truth be known , we all are, in the killing of livestock.

Answer 7

I don't know, but I would assume that some slaughterhouses definitely ARE this bad. Though I agree that the awful footage out there is probably the worst, knowing that, to some degree, this type of killing DOES go on, I can't make myself eat meat.

Answer 8

Unfortunately, most of them are really that horrible. This is because the only thing that the meat industry cares about is profit. Not quality. The safest bet is to eat only locally raised beef or poultry.

Answer 9

PETA will take any example and try to pin it to EVERY chicken farm, beef farm, etc. Half those pictures they have of the "Evil KFC chicken farm" are really old, like from '97 or before...

Answer 10

Many of those slaughter houses are in 3rd world countries. During Katrina ... PETA rescued animals in front of the camera and then killed them later when they didn't have room for them in their shelters.

This was reported by one of the regulars on here who is a US naval officer and was engaged in the rescue effort in New Orleans.