chickens, 32 million egg-laying and breeding hens and 19 million turkeys are transported to slaughter in
Canada annually. Approximately 2,420,000 poultry arrive at the slaughterhouse dead resulting in a
mortality rate of 1.3% of egg-laying and breeding birds, 0.4% of broiler chickens and 0.1% of turkeys.
rates found in poultry, but aggressive handling and improper transport practices and conveyances play
a large role and can and should be improved.
standards, the chronic and severe violations occurring daily are not, and historically have never been
enforced. Poultry are regularly overloaded onto improper conveyances that do not afford them
protection from the elements or enough headroom. The crate design is also improper, not allowing
each bird to be accessible to be euthanized or removed should they become injured.
applied as it is for other monogastric (single-stomached) animals, such as pigs. Toms (male turkeys),
may weigh in excess of 60 lbs (10-15 lbs more than a lamb which cannot legally be live-hung). Yet
these large birds are routinely caught and carried upside down, putting enormous pressure on their leg
and hip joints, when they are thrown or stuffed onto crates and taken to slaughter. They and all poultry
are live-hung at the slaughterhouse which causes pain to already weakened and broken limbs (due to
selective breeding for increased breast meat). This is exacerbated by violent catching and throwing,
and having the loaded crates thrown onto moving conveyor belts where they are again roughly grabbed
to be removed from.
handling to the severe stresses put on their weakened legs), seen in poultry slaughterhouses and in
transport, would never be accepted with any other species of farm animal. At one slaughterhouse in
British Columbia. amputated legs continually fell from the upper leg shackles onto the still-live upside-
down birds on the lower railing. These same birds, already suffering an amputated limb, are also at a
greater risk for abuse such as punching, stomping, and kicking as they are at high risk of falling from
the suspensory leg shackles the metal shackles the birds are hung upside-down on.
of a poultry facility in the Fraser Valley will show, it is not due to improperly applied biosecurity
measures, but rather the unclean conditions of the barns, with bodies of dying and dead birds littering
the floors.
to turn a blind eye to the suffering of these birds. Their protection is guaranteed under the Health of
Animals Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The government has a legal obligation to ensure the birds'
humane treatment and to prosecute offenders.