Update: The U.S. House of Representatives is taking steps to delay or stop implementation of the high-speed slaughter rule. As is, slaughterhouses are hell on earth for pigs, and they’re about to get worse. Within just a few weeks, the USDA is planning to give slaughterhouses across the country the green light to recklessly speed up slaughter lines–endangering animals, workers, …
In November 2018, Compassion Over Killing released gut-wrenching undercover footage exposing the horrors of high-speed chicken slaughter at Amick Farms in Maryland. This horrifying footage showed chickens being punched, kicked, and thrown, as well as being left to slowly drown during equipment breakdowns. Our investigator even found “red birds” with blood still under their skin–meaning they likely entered the scalding …
In November of 2018, a gut-wrenching video by a Compassion Over Killing investigator revealed to millions of consumers the truth behind the USDA’s high-speed chicken slaughter program, which provides plants with waivers allowing them to increase already dangerously fast kill line speeds from 140 to 175 birds per minute—nearly three birds every second. A requirement of this waiver is that …
As meat industry sales go down, the United States is experiencing a huge surplus of animal products sold as food. Currently supplies of chicken, beef, pork, turkey, and milk far outweigh demand. And yet, even with an excess of chicken in cold storage, the USDA is granting waivers for chicken slaughterhouses to increase line speeds and kill even more birds …
Today, Compassion Over Killing’s Director of Corporate Outreach Laura Cascada took the floor during the Q&A following a USDA presentation at the Delmarva Poultry Industry’s annual conference to hold the federal agency accountable for putting millions of consumers, workers, and animals in danger with its high-speed slaughter plans. Laura took the agency to task after its Deputy Assistant Administrator of …
As the USDA debates rolling out their high-speed pig slaughter program nationwide, the slaughter and meatpacking industries remain some of the most dangerous working environments in the US. In a new story, The Guardian reports that in US meat plants there are two amputations a week and 17 “severe” incidents a month, which includes hospitalizations or “loss of an eye.” …
Compassion Over Killing and ASPCA have hand-delivered a joint comment to the US Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service in Washington, DC, asking the federal agency to end, not expand, its high-speed pig slaughter program. In February, the USDA proposed a “Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection” rule, which would revoke maximum line speeds and allow slaughterhouses to …
Today, Compassion Over Killing (COK) brought media and the voices of over a quarter million people to the doorstep of the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) in the nation’s capital, in a rally against the expansion of the federal agency’s dangerous high-speed pig slaughter program. The New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS) would allow slaughterhouses to further increase their already …
The US Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has rejected a chicken industry proposal to allow for the increase of already dangerously fast slaughter line speeds. In December, Compassion Over Killing submitted a comment to the USDA voicing our grave concerns over the National Chicken Council’s proposal. We had also submitted an initial comment in September …