Ronnie on Politics

Americans seem to really enjoy eating their beef. It makes your mouth water just thinking about that thick juicy steak cooking over a bead of coals or that big double bacon, cheese burger from McDonalds. Even though most Americans consume beef, many of them might give it up if they knew the horrors that cattle endure at the slaughterhouse.

Cattle arrive at the slaughterhouse tightly packed in large trucks. Many are old, worn out cattle like spent dairy cows. A lot of them, due to disease and injury, die in the trucks during transport and many more arrive too sick to walk off the truck on their own. These cows are called downers. To remove the downers from the truck, slaughterhouse employees attach one end of a chain around the cow’s ankle, and the other to the loading dock, and the truck is driven out from under the cow allowing the cow’s body to slam to the pavement.

Those that are able to walk are herded down a long corridor to the waiting chute, many being shocked along the way, by men with electric cattle prods. The downers are dragged there with a hoist using a chain wrapped around their ankle. At this point the cows are beginning to get nervous and anxious, unsure of what’s happening to them, unaware of what is taking place on the other side of the large steel doors that lead into the killing station. The killing station is where the knocker renders the cows unconscious with an air gun, that drives a three-inch-long, solid-steel rod into the animal’s brain.

Once the knocker is ready, the doors to the killing station are swung open and several of the frightened cows are forced through the doorway and into a narrow stall, nose to tail. By now the cows can smell the blood and see his or her former companions in various stages of dismemberment. They begin to thrash about wildly in the confines of the stall. The knocker moves quickly from animal to animal, stunning them with his air gun.

After the animals are stunned, the side of the stall is raised, and a chain is secured to the cow’s right hind leg and he or she is hoisted up and passed on to the sticker. It’s the sticker that slits the animal’s throat allowing the animal to bleed to death. Sometimes the knocker is unable to knock the entire group of cows unconscious, leaving some of them kicking about wildly, making it impossible for the sticker to slit their throat correctly. Many of them leave the kill station dazed but still aware of what’s happening to them.

Next the cows, including those still alive, are sent to the disassembly station. Here the cows have their heads removed, are skinned, and the headless animal is dropped to the floor. Then the feet are removed and the body is slit down the middle, and the hide is peeled away. A yoke is then hooked to the stumps of the hind legs, and the body is lifted, gutted, and sawed in half.
And finally, the “sides of beef” are sprayed down with water to wash away some of the filth and reduced to parts, by blood-drenched butchers, for the supermarket and your dining room table.

It’s a horrible price the cows must pay in order for us to enjoy our beef. Perhaps the next time you’re shopping at the grocery store you’ll pass on that bloody red steak and opt to eat more veggies instead.