Tyson Foods slaughters approximately 37,000,000 chickens per week through fifty facilities, which means the total birds killed daily equates to around 5.3 million.

There are probably Tyson products in your local supermarket. Tyson supplies food to restaurants like KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King, and McDonald’s. Their products are also distributed to small businesses and institutional food services like prisons. Tyson Foods is everywhere.

In 2018, Tyson sold $40 billion worth of products, with sales consisting mostly of beef and chicken. Tyson slaughters around 133,000 cows per week within a dozen facilities, 408,000 pigs per week in nine facilities, and 37,000,000 chickens per week in 50 facilities.

Let’s pause on one data point there: 37 million chickens killed per week through fifty facilities, which means the total birds killed daily equates to around 5.3 million, by just one company.

Being one of the top meat producers in the United States means that production cycles must be fast, animals must be bred in large quantities, and the slaughtering process must be a continuous cycle.

Whenever production times are under pressure, abuse and neglect are likelier to occur. Since workers are rushing animals to transportation trucks or slaughter, a slow or defiant animal might disrupt their quick pace. This hindrance often results in kicking, poking, and stabbing these terrified and exhausted animals, as is documented in undercover investigations made into production facilities.

And not only is time at a premium – so is space. Barns are filled with hundreds to thousands of animals at a time, so neglect is also common on large factory farms like Tyson’s.

Animal abuse claims at Tyson Foods

An undercover investigation produced by Compassion Over Killing revealed cruelty throughout the supply chain of a Tyson supplier in Virginia. The findings were disturbing, as chicks were bludgeoned, thrown, kicked, run over by machinery, and impaled by a metal spike.

Chickens were also found overstuffed and unable to move due to their unsustainably rapid growth. Meat chickens, usually known as broilers, have been selectively bred to produce more meat faster, which often results in the inability to function properly as actual animals. These birds grow so quickly that they are sent to slaughter at just 45 days old when the average lifespan of a backyard chicken is anywhere from 5 to 8 years or so.

When slaughtered, essentially while they are still in the baby stage of their lives, they weight about 5.5 lbs. To illustrate how unnatural that is compared to chicken growth in the 1950’s, that’s the same as if a year-old human baby weighted 93 lbs.

A PETA investigation of an Alabama Tyson location displays disturbing footage of live birds surviving the throat-cutting process whose heads were ripped off by workers as they pass on the conveyor belt. Workers also slam birds’ heads against machines, aggressively force them into shackles, and stack multiple birds into one set of shackles as if it were a game. A PETA undercover investigator claims he witnessed severely burned yet conscious birds in the feather removal tank. The manager told him up to 40 birds could be scalded alive per shift without cause for concern.

One worker tells an undercover investigator that, “Yesterday, I ain’t gonna lie, man, I straight up broke one’s back… I hurt an innocent chicken because the other chickens made me mad.”

This type of cruelty is not specific to one processing plant. Tyson Farms, as well as their suppliers, have been the stage for such acts for years.

Environmental and health concerns

Tyson has been involved in numerous lawsuits and paid out millions of dollars due to careless practices evoking environmental concerns.

Factory farms are a main contributor to resource depletion and the spillage of toxic chemicals into the environment. Tyson Foods processes millions of animals per year and their waste has to go somewhere.

Aside from the health concerns of eating processed meats, Tyson products have been recalled for containing various foreign objects. Tyson has also been involved in multiple environmental scandals and is directly responsible for cruel treatment of animals as part of its high speed, high volume animal meat operation.

Animal cruelty does not exist exclusively on Tyson farms; whenever there is factory farming, abuse and neglect will be present.

Original source: https://sentientmedia.org