[weegee]

In the wood chipper case, the USDA did not approve the slaughter method, said Ed Lloyd, a department spokesman. The decision on filing charges was up to the San Diego County district attorney's office, which declined in May after determining there was no criminal intent by farm owners Arie and Bill Wilgenburg.

The USDA had no say in the manner of killing of these animals because they were being destroyed to prevent further infection. They were not killed for use as a food or drug which is where the USDA's power lies.

That said, I do not agree with the practice of throwing living things into a wood-chipper. If the chickens had been injected first (or gassed?), then the destruction of the carcases may have been easier to defend.

It sounds like this rare event is being used to push for other investigations into animal slaughter for food.

"If an animal is stressed when it goes to slaughter ... it will emit hormones that create quality defects in meat that then has to be trimmed away," she said.

Most predatory animals eat live animals. That has to be quite stressful to the animal being chased, captured, and eaten. Do the predators eat around this "tainted meat"?

[TheAngryClam]

The solution is simple: ban assault chipper-shredders!

[dalereed]

"That said, I do not agree with the practice of throwing living things into a wood-chipper. If the chickens had been injected first (or gassed?), then the destruction of the carcases may have been easier to defend."

They had to destroy thousands because of newcastle disease and a wood chipper is instant death, probably less pain than giving it an injection. This has been hashed around here locally and everyone as much as told PETA to go stick it!

[Threepwood]

These animals had a virus. I'm not sure a wood chipper is the best way to get rid of them. All that areosolized chicken? Not only is that dangerous in terms of germ spread, it must have been right nasty to watch. Blech.

The correct strategy for my money is pitch them directly into some kind of mobile furnace, or a tank of caustic chemical. Sounds awful, but chickens can carry viruses that can make the jump into people, and these are issues we need to think about.

[Calpernia]

>>>Each year, 8 billion chickens and turkeys, 97 million hogs, 35 million cattle, 3 million sheep and lambs, and 1 million calves are slaughtered in the United States.

I believe some of these were on my grill today. YUM.

[squidly]

All I know is I wouldn't want to be the guy who has to clean the wood chipper.

[hole_n_one]

Drop the chicken!

[honeygrl]

This was posted a while back apparently when it first happened. The chicken had to be killed and there were 30,000 of them. So the question is, how do you otherwise kill that many without going totally broke in the process? If it was a large wood chipper, they would've died almost intantly. Would it have been better for them to chop off all their heads and have 30,000 headless chickens running around? (they do run around after their heads are cut off) Injecting or gassing that many chickens would've been a longer, more drawn out death and that would've taken a lot of money and much more man power. I'm not sure what they did with the chippered up meat but it seems like if they had bags attached to the output of the wood chipper, they could've sealed them and disposed of them with a large bonfire or something. Honestly, to me it doesn't sound like it was such a bad way to do it considering how many they had to kill. As long as it was a large wood chipper, it was likely a much quicker and more humane death than they use at chicken-for-food factories. Killing this many animals at one time is going to sound gruesome no matter how it's done.

[Don W]

Tell me: How many of you have actually been around chickens?

Chickens are stupid, mindless and a LOT less than smart. As they entered the chipper, they were probably thinking "I wonder if there's any food in there."

A chipper is probably the fastest, least painful death they could have experienced. Think about it: they get thrown in, and 35 milliseconds later, they're nothing but a puff of feathers (and other stuff) out the discharge chute.

As for the "aerosolized" worries, the workers who were dealing with the stock had most likely already been exposed, and "aerosolized" body parts fall out of suspension rather quickly. I'd lay odds of 400:1 that nothing even potentially dangerous from these birds was extant further than 200 yards from the chipper. And that's with a stiff breeze blowing.

Alarmism. The "Chicken Little" syndrome.

Feh.

[Carry_Okie]

While the case is unusual, animal welfare advocates say it shows that farmers are seldom held responsible when animals are subjected to unnecessary pain and suffering.

Excuse me, but a chipper is a really fast machine. The animal would be so surprised that it would be over before it knew what happened. I can't think of a faster more painless way to get it done in the large volumes these people had to suddenly address. That's probably why the vet recommended it. Since when did you ever hear of a veterenarian who was into animal cruelty?

Go ahead, think about it. How much carbon dioxide would it take to suffocate tens of thousands of chickens? How big a chamber? How long would it take to set up? Do animals suffer packed in a chamber dying of suffocation? You bet. This whole story is a bogus fabrication fed to an urban public so ignorant about the food they eat every day as to have become completely disconnected from reality. It makes them suckers for a hidden agenda.

Most predatory animals eat live animals. That has to be quite stressful to the animal being chased, captured, and eaten. Do the predators eat around this "tainted meat"?

Have you ever watched a cat kill a mouse? They bring them to their kittens still alive in order to build their drive to hunt and kill. It's a hilarious and pretty grusome thing to watch a litter of kittens trying to figure out how to kill something. We gave our cat a beetle the other night and it played with it for over an hour. He munched off a few legs. He dropped it into the dog's water dish. Then he fished it out. We found it on the floor the next morning, sorta dismembered.

Most predatory animals like to play with their half dead victims. It's not at all unusual for them to feast on a living victim!

A "quick and painless" death is an anthropogenic projection of how we would rather go. Nature doesn't care about such things one bit.

This whole business is all about a bunch of thugs feeding off the public's fear of death. If I were Tyson Foods, I'd be shoveling money to PETA in orcder to drive Tyson's domestic competitors out of business. That way Tyson could make a killing out of the chicken farms they're setting up in South America. Of course, there won't be ANY regulation down there, but what do you care if the media don't tell you about it?

[Mike-o-Matic]

   Chickens are typically stunned in an electrified bath before their heads are cut off with a rotating blade.

Did somebody say rotating knives?
(note: link is an ~230k mp3 audio link)

[T'wit]

Correct, I believe, is lethal injection, but only after the chicken has been given a chance to appeal all the way to the supreme court, write a will, smoke one last cigarette and obtain last rites and grief counselling.

[Manic_Episode]

R-R-R-r-r-R-R-R-r-r-R-R-R(((BA-GAWWK!)))K-K-K-K-CH-K-K-K-CH-K-K-K(((FLOOOOF)))R-R-R-r-r-r-R-R-R-r-r-r

[pttttt]

The owners of a Southern California egg farm insist they did nothing wrong when they slaughtered 30,000 chickens, quarantined because of a virus, by throwing them into wood chippers.

Is this the "chipper chicken"? (Father of the Bride, wedding planner Franck quote)

[Xenalyte]

"If an animal is stressed when it goes to slaughter ... it will emit hormones that create quality defects in meat that then has to be trimmed away," she said.

I will say this: the Kobe beef we had over the weekend was the best thing that's ever been yanked out of a beer-fed, massaged cow. Totally worth the price.

[azhenfud]

It's FUSED.

[dark_lord]

I absolutely agree with the animal rights activists on this one. Oh, the horror! Instead all such condemned animals should immediately be transported to the homes, condos, & apartments of such animal rights activists. I am sure that a typical animal rights activist apartment dweller would have no problem sponsoring 1000 -- no make that 5000 diseased chickens in their personal domiciles. Let the poor creatures have a kind and comfortable home for their final days. And of course the animal rights community will pay for individual burial services for each stricken animal.