The Slaughter House

Today, as part of my rotation, I had to make site visits to an abattoir and poultry processing plant. As such, I had the glorious opportunity to watch a number of pigs, chickens and a cow be slaughtered for food consumption.

It was, by far, the most disturbing and terrifying thing I've ever had the honour to witness.

And now I know how inhumanely animals are killed for the benefit of the stomachs of men.

First, I saw a cow get shot in a head (apparently it just stuns it), listened to the health inspector talk about what they do when they kill cows, and saw and heard blood gush from the neck of a hanging (upside-down) cow like a waterfall. The most interesting thing I saw was how huge its stomach is with its internally divided 4 stomachs. I don't eat beef and steak and I didn't see most of the process so I wasn't as bothered as with the pigs.

Then, I saw them stun pigs with thousands of volts to the head, slit their throats and hang them upside down before scalding off their hairs and sawing it apart. I found this to be the most disturbing thing because just before they stunned one of the pigs it looked me in the eye with so much fear. I nearly cried when it got killed. It all happened so quickly. ='( Safe to say, I turned my back to that after that but it's incredibly difficult to drown out their screams. I don't ever want to eat ham again. Not that I ate it often anyway.

Chickens don't really see to be that aware of what's coming for them. Though, hanging them upside down and passing them through machines is as bad as it gets.

This clerkship is driving me crazy! I'm tired of all the smelly, dirty, disturbing places!