That’s why citizens concerned about extreme animal suffering have been working for decades to protect turkeys and other birds under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA). 

The HMSA governs the handling and treatment of farmed animals during slaughter—but it excludes birds, who account for around 95% of U.S. land animals slaughtered for food annually. This means the billions of turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese killed in our food system each year are excluded from basic humane consideration.

The USDA’s reasoning for not including poultry under the HMSA is that their slaughter is governed by the Poultry Products Inspection Act. However, this law, which, in the USDA’s words, requires that birds “be handled using good commercial practices and that they do not die from anything other than slaughter after arriving at the slaughter facility,” is woefully inadequate. 

By the time they reach the slaughterhouse, most turkeys will have suffered from the moment they hatched. Over 99% of U.S. turkeys are kept on factory farms, industrial facilities where as many as tens of thousands of birds are crowded into sheds. Parts of their sensitive beaks and toes are cut off or burned in an attempt to prevent stress-related fighting and injuries, exacerbated by factory farming itself. Bred to maximize agribusiness profit, modern turkeys grow too large and fast for their bodies to cope, leaving many with debilitating leg injuries or heart attacks. In fact, the turkeys grow so heavy that they can no longer mate naturally; instead, they endure artificial insemination. During transport from farm to slaughterhouse, thousands of turkeys may die, afforded no protection from extreme heat or cold, and denied food and water despite long journeys.

For those who live long enough to reach the slaughterhouse, the preventable suffering continues because, without legislation to mandate more humane handling, turkeys are left at the mercy of profit-driven agribusiness. 

Birds are violently handled and shackled upside down by their legs to be stunned before slaughter. This immobilizes them so they don’t move and can be killed more efficiently, but the stunning isn’t intended to render them insensible to pain, which would be required if they were protected under the HMSA. This means that birds can be conscious as they are killed, including when they are lowered into a tank of scalding hot water and boiled alive.

The HMSA was signed into law in 1958 and needs to be updated to include poultry. Since 1970, the nation’s turkey consumption has nearly doubled, and while more than 200 million U.S. turkeys have been slaughtered annually in recent years, the birds symbolizing Thanksgiving have remained forgotten. A change is long overdue.

The USDA and Congress must act and recognize that turkeys, like other animals, are living, feeling beings who deserve to be treated with compassion. They should not be treated as inanimate objects.

If we are genuinely grateful for turkeys, the least we can do is protect them from slow, agonizing deaths. The kindest thing we can do is to leave them off our plates by embracing a more compassionate, plant-based holiday feast this year.