Thursday, November 10, 2005

Adopt a turkey... don't eat one

Turkey-squawk  Between 260 and 300 million turkeys are slaughtered annually in the United States, according to USDA statistics. Of these, approximately 45 million are killed for Thanksgiving, and 22 million are killed for Christmas.

Genetic Engineering
Today's turkeys have been genetically altered to grow twice as fast, and twice as large, as their ancestors. Putting the growth rate of today's turkeys into perspective, Lancaster Farming reports, "If a seven pound [human] baby grew at the same rate that today's turkey grows, when the baby reaches 18 weeks of age, it would weigh 1,500 pounds."

A boob job…
To meet consumer demand for breast meat, commercial turkeys have been anatomically manipulated to have abnormally large breasts. As a result, the birds cannot mount and reproduce naturally, and the industry now relies on artificial insemination as the sole means of reproduction.

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