Millions gather around a fall feast to express gratitude each November. Many don’t know that the turkey at the center of the Thanksgiving table suffered their whole life.
But every year, Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt a Turkey Project inspires people to embrace a kinder holiday by sponsoring a turkey, instead of eating one. You can, too, at AdoptaTurkey.org.
Learn more about the life of turkeys on factory farms, and how you can help.
More than 200 million turkeys are slaughtered each year in the United States, nearly all of whom spend their whole lives on intensive factory farms where they must endure severely crowded conditions and unimaginable cruelty. They are denied basic care and any chance to live in their natural environments, form social groups, or engage in their natural behaviors.
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Farmed birds face brutal practices like “debeaking” and “detoeing,” industry terms for cutting or burning off parts of a bird’s beak or toes without anesthesia or pain relief. These cruel acts are done in an attempt to prevent injuries that may arise from the severely crowded and stressful conditions of factory farming itself.
Tutu was debeaked before her rescue
Factory-farmed turkeys are selectively bred to grow to an unnaturally large size at an unnaturally fast pace. This breeding for maximal industry profit leaves birds suffering from debilitating injuries or even heart attacks. Turkeys may grow so large that they can’t stand, move, or even reach water and food.
Due to the cruel breeding for rapid growth mentioned above, today’s commercially raised turkeys reach “market weight,” or the weight at which the industry deems them ready for slaughter, in 14-16 weeks. That means factory-farmed turkeys are killed at just four months of age or even younger, while their wild counterparts could live for four years or even as long as 10 years.
Despite accounting for around 95% of land animals slaughtered in the U.S., birds are denied the basic protections of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. This leaves the treatment of these birds at slaughter largely up to profit-driven agribusiness. Birds may suffer violent handling and abuse—and while turkeys and chickens are lowered into electrified water in an attempt to stun them, this often fails, leaving some birds fully conscious when their throats are cut.
It doesn’t have to be this way; you can help make a difference this holiday season.
Choose a kind holiday tradition by symbolically adopting one of the rescued turkeys who call Farm Sanctuary home. Your gift will help us provide daily, individualized care to your newly adopted feathered friend and the hundreds of other rescued farm animals at Farm Sanctuary—while supporting our efforts to save more animals in need and fight the abuses of factory farming.
