31 comments
In favor of compassionate care for all animals
These should be the absolute minimum standard of care for farmed animals. As we teach our children to “be kind” to all beings and our Mother Earth, the least we can do is set a good example for them.
Please instill standards for compassionate handling of farm animals.
I strongly support passage of these regulations as I have been horrified at the conditions I have seen onnthe highway passing trucks full of chickens freezing, crowded, looking exhausted and sticking heads out for air. Please pass it
It’s outrageous we even have to make basic standards of care into laws. Please vote in favor of this bill.
I am strongly in favor of the passage of these regulations to provide some relief to the horrific conditions these animals experience their entire lives. They are thinking, feeling individuals who deserve our compassion and care.
Please vote in favor of this bill, simply asking for some decent standards and less cruelty. There is no valid reason for chickens to be mishandled in such a manner. Thank you for your consideration.
Please support bare minimum welfare standards for animals.
As a VA resident, I am in support of this bill.
Birds deserve to be treated with compassion.
In favor- more laws/regulations needed!
It is my hope that the Virginia Town Hall will pass minimum standards to protect chickens in transport. Chickens are sentient beings who are forced endure horrific conditions and treatment, and it is our responsibility to mitigate these conditions.
Please pass this as all living creatures deserve at least minimum protection f
I am strongly in favor of more humane treatment of poultry. It is horrifying to see them stuffed into cages on trucks bound for slaughter. I have seen those trucks hauling birds in all sorts of weather, and have witnessed birds dead on the highway after having fallen out of the truck. It is atrocious treatment and I have seen videos that show it is just one more instance of cruelty to these poor creatures. For example, "bunchers" will grab multiple birds by their legs and literally throw them all at once into an open crate door, very like causing injuries and trauma. This is unacceptable and I hope we can at least work on improving their last day. Thank you.
In favor of this petition and compassionate care for all animals
To whom it may concern: I wish to thank you for considering improvements to the handling of millions of birds sent to slaughter in Virginia each year.
These seem like very easy to implement, common sense regulations, and I’m shocked that they’re not already in place. Thank you again.
Animals pay the ultimate price for human survival, they pay with their life. They deserve more than “the bare minimum.” We should be providing them w/ the Gold Standard of care for their sacrifice.
Please vote yes on these simple rules to reduce the suffering of countless beings.
Expressing Support
Please make the necessary changes to support these suggested welfare improvements for the handling of poultry.
It wouldn’t take much to provide less cruel treatment for the animals. I
highly recommend it as your time in business is shoe as the climate crisis people want all fake meat. You may
be out of business soon enough.
In favor of welfare improvements for poultry.
Birds are sentient beings that can feel pain and suffering. As a civilized society, we should have regulations providing at least minimum welfare protections for poultry in transport within the Commonwealth. It is only the lucky residents of our state who have never been stuck behind an overcrowded poultry truck full of birds experiencing intense confinement and extreme weather on their way to slaughter.
Dear Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services,
On behalf of Animal Equality, we submit the following comment in support of the Petition for Rulemaking Pursuant to Virginia Code §2.2-4007(A): Minimum Welfare Standards for the Transport of Live Poultry for Slaughter submitted by Animal Partisan (hereinafter “Animal Partisan’s Petition”).
Animal Equality is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to create a world where animals used in agriculture are respected and protected. Our organization works toward this mission by engaging with public officials, private companies, and members of the public through investigations, campaigns, and legal advocacy. Animal Equality has supporters throughout the United States, including Virginia, and regularly engages in litigation in jurisdictions across the country.
I.) Adopting the Regulations Laid Out in Animal Partisan’s Petition Would Help Reduce Unnecessary Suffering of Poultry During All Stages of Transport Process
We, as an organization, strongly support Animal Partisan’s Petition, as it would create safeguards and regulations that would undoubtedly reduce the number of pre-slaughter deaths and the amount of intense suffering experienced by poultry throughout each stage of the transport process.
As noted in Animal Partisan’s Petition, poultry are the most processed animals in the United States, yet they are the least protected. Poultry often endure unspeakable suffering during the handling process, prior to transport. Animal Partisan’s Petition notes these birds can sustain serious injuries and endure immense stress from improper handling. This improper handling has also contributed to increased dead-on-arrival rates. Additionally, Animal Partisan outlines a 2022 investigation done by Animal Outlook, where birds were abused by workers during the handling process, with one worker even ripping the head off a bird. Unfortunately, this type of brutality during handling is all too common in the industry, and guidelines and safeguards are needed to ensure they are handled with the utmost care and respect. Animal Partisan’s Proposed Rule, as laid out in its Petition, would bolster protections for poultry and reduce suffering on a vast scale during the handling stage.
While poultry are vulnerable to pain and suffering during the handling stage, they are even more at risk during the transport stage. As Animal Partisan’s Petition notes, extreme temperatures play a key role in stress, injury, and death during the transport stage. In fact, it is estimated that more than 20 million chickens die every year while being transported in the United States, with researchers at Michigan State University noting that “these deaths are caused by a number of factors, including poor ventilation, long journeys and high temperatures . . .” Animal Partisan’s Proposed Rule, as laid out in its Petition, would effectively reduce poultry suffering and mortality rates, as the Rule would ensure that the temperature is appropriately regulated through proper ventilation, strict temperature monitoring, and sufficient space for each bird. These Regulations are absolutely necessary to ensure that birds are not left to suffer and die from extreme temperatures during transport.
After the birds are transported to the slaughterhouse, they are often left, sometimes for many hours, to suffer and die from extreme temperatures in the lairage stage. Animal Partisan’s Proposed Rule would effectively reduce, if not eliminate, poultry deaths in the lairage period by implementing safeguards, including proper ventilation, temperature control, and strict limits on lairage time. Again, this Proposed Rule is absolutely critical to ensure the safety and well-being of poultry.
II.) Adopting the Regulations Laid Out in Animal Partisan’s Petition Adds Additional Safeguards to Protect Virginia Consumers from Unsafe Food Products
Not only does Animal Partisan’s Proposed Rule create safeguards for birds, but it also protects Virginia consumers from potentially dangerous food products. As Animal Partisan notes in its Petition, physiological responses to stress in animals, as well as physical impacts that cause bruising, can completely alter meat products in unsafe ways. Current poultry transport practices significantly increase the likelihood of stress and physical impact in birds, thus putting consumers at risk of consuming unsafe meat products. Stronger regulations, like the ones suggested by Animal Partisan, could greatly reduce stress and physical impact during the transport process, thus reducing the risk of unsafe meat products reaching Virginia consumers. For their safety, Animal Partisan’s Proposed Rule should be adopted.
III.) Conclusion
To conclude, Animal Equality strongly supports Animal Partisan’s Petition and asks that the Board adopt the regulations set forth in the Petition. These regulations are critical to ensure that poultry are protected from unnecessary suffering and that Virginia’s consumers are safeguarded from potentially dangerous food products. We thank you for your time and consideration.
Best Regards,
Animal Equality
PETA supports Animal Partisan’s petition that the Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services promulgate regulations setting minimum standards of care for the transportation, handling and lairage of birds prior to slaughter within the Commonwealth.
In the United States, more than 9 billion birds are slaughtered for their flesh each year—more than all other land animals combined—yet not a single federal law protects them from abuse, neglect, suffering and distress in transport and at slaughterhouses.
These animals are effectively denied such protection under the Commonwealth’s laws, as well. Va. Code § 3.2-6570 (D) exempts “farming activities” (including transportation of birds in ways consistent with the poultry industry’s practices) from prosecution. Meanwhile, local law enforcement agencies often mistakenly believe that federal regulation of slaughterhouses preempts criminal liability under state law for cruelty that occurs there.
As a result, these animals routinely suffer and die—in clearly illegal ways—on the Commonwealth’s roadways and in its slaughterhouses, with no legal ramifications for the culpable parties. For example:
• In December 2022, a winter storm brought freezing rain and temperatures of 33 degrees to the Dayton area. Despite this, turkeys were transported in a trailer with no protection from the elements to the Cargill Meat Solutions slaughterhouse in Dayton. At the slaughterhouse, a federal inspector found that 24 dead turkeys on the trailer were “diffusely soaked wet and cold to the touch,” “consistent with death due to hypothermia.”
• In November 2022, a federal inspector discovered a container of live chickens which had fallen off a trailer at Shenandoah Valley Organic’s Harrisonburg slaughterhouse onto the pavement below, with the birds “piled on top of one another, at least three or four deep.” The inspector counted “67 chickens [who] were dead or dying … due to trauma and/or suffocation ….”
• In July 2022, a man hauling chickens to that Harrisonburg slaughterhouse ran off a straight stretch of road, struck two utility poles, crossed the oncoming lane of traffic, ran off the left side of the road, crossed back, overturned in the right lane, and struck a third pole. The crash killed many chickens who were crushed or ejected from crates on the overturned trailer, and left many other maimed birds to suffer for several hours along the roadside.
• In May 2020, workers at George’s, LLC left thousands of chickens overnight on two trailers—as the temperature dropped to 37 degrees—at its slaughterhouse near Edinburg. Up to 2,525 of the animals died as a result.
• Circle S Ranch, Inc. trucks carrying turkeys to the Cargill Meat Solutions slaughterhouse in Dayton crashed on at least five occasions between 2012 and August 2023 in Henry and Pittsylvania counties alone. Eyewitnesses reported that turkeys with broken bones and other serious injuries were not relieved of their suffering on site. Workers allegedly tossed them against coops, causing their heads and wings to strike the metal frames. After this August’s crash, State Police struggled for two hours to even reach Circle S, and another three hours passed before turkey industry representatives arrived to start recovering survivors. After the 2012 crash, approximately 540 turkeys—piled on top of one another in transport cages and denied shade—slowly suffered and died from apparent heat-related stress on the side of the road.
Avian species handled, transported and held for slaughter in the Commonwealth are as capable of suffering as are the exotic and native birds (and other companion animals) the Board has wisely regulated the transport of in Virginia Administrative Code, Chapter 150.
Given this—and the abject suffering of poultry in Virginia currently unaddressed by law enforcement and regulatory agencies—PETA urges the Board to regulate the transportation, handling and lairage of such birds prior to their slaughter within the Commonwealth. Some of the worst abuses of these animals would be mitigated to the extent the poultry industry complied with the proposed rule.
VIA TOWNHALL.VIRGINIA.GOV
September 15, 2023
Kevin E. Schmidt
Director, Office of Policy, Planning and Research
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
kevin.schmidt@vdacs.virginia.gov
(807) 786-1346
Re: Comments on Petition for Rulemaking Pursuant to Virginia Code
§ 2.2-4007(A): Minimum Welfare Standards for the Transport of
Live Poultry to Slaughter
Introduction
We submit the following comment on behalf of our 1.8 million members and followers across the country in support of food systems that work better for animals, people, and the planet.
As a national animal protection organization that pioneered the Sanctuary movement, Farm Sanctuary possesses firsthand experience with the dire consequences of inadequately regulated poultry transport. Over the past 35 years, we have cared for numerous birds subjected to inhumane transport conditions, uniquely positioning us to advocate for the nearly 300 million chickens and turkeys transported, processed, and sold in Virginia each year.1
In the following sections, we explore why and how the Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services should set specific minimum welfare standards for the transport of live poultry to slaughter.
I. Handling
In early 2022, a poultry truck driver took a wide turn at an intersection, causing over a dozen unsecured crates filled with hundreds of small chickens to crash on a busy street. With little incentive to return and collect the birds, the driver continued on. Luckily, Farm Sanctuary was contacted.2
One of the chicks, named Lemondrop, suffered a broken wing. While one might assume her wing broke from the fall’s impact, we cannot be sure Lemondrop wasn’t harmed from routine, rough handling.3 Numerous documented cases reveal instances of poultry abuse by workers,4 including multiple investigations against Tyson Foods that exposed handlers beating, throwing, kicking, and suffocating live birds.5 As cited in Animal Partisan’s petition, the catching, handling, and loading of birds for transport to slaughter can cause a host of injuries, including bone fractures, dislocations, ruptured organs, bruising, and head trauma.6
Minimizing stress, bruising, and injury from handling not only benefits the birds but also the humans who consume them. Increased stress from physical and psychological harm elevates the risk that Salmonella bacteria in the birds’ intestines will infiltrate the muscle—consumed by humans—via the bloodstream.7 Bruising also poses a concern, as Salmonella bacteria thrive and spread much more easily in bruises than in healthy tissues, thus heightening the risk of consumers falling ill from roughly handled poultry.8
We support the Virginia Cooperative Extension’s recommendations regarding best practices for the humane catching and handling of poultry and call upon the Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services to adopt the Extension’s standards:
Noisy and aggressive catching can cause panic and injury. Approach the birds quietly and calmly, possibly under dim lighting. For larger bird types, always have two points of contact when catching a bird, for instance, by holding the legs and the body. Never catch birds by their neck, head, or tail. Avoid catching by their legs or wings alone. Do not hold birds upside down, [as] they get stressed, fearful, and may even die because of inverted restraint.9
2. Transit Conditions
Temperature
As discussed in Animal Partisan’s petition, extreme temperatures constitute the primary cause of stress and injury for poultry during transit to slaughter.10 According to publicly available records, thousands of birds have perished due to heat exhaustion and sub-zero conditions. In cases of severe heat and cold stress, surviving birds are more likely to contract Salmonella infections, thereby increasing the risk of Salmonella-related illnesses in human consumers.11
Minnesota’s Butterfield Foods repeated state cruelty law violations showcase the peril posed by extreme temperatures for poultry in transit.12 On June 9, 2021, over 2,500 birds died after being left in a trailer overnight without proper ventilation when local temperatures exceeded 90 degrees. The preceding year, Butterfield evaded accountability when, in two separate incidents, more than 18,500 birds suffered and died from heat exposure and freezing temperatures.13 Without proper regulation, companies like Butterfield will continue jeopardizing human and animal lives.
To protect poultry from exposure to extreme temperatures and safeguard Virginia’s consumers from Salmonella contamination, the Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services should adopt the following standards for transit temperature regulation:14
Stocking Density
In May 2015, locals notified Farm Sanctuary that 60 chickens had fallen off a transport truck headed to Brooklyn.15 The year prior, Farm Sanctuary rescued 87 birds that survived a similar fall from a truck on the Staten Island Expressway.16 We have witnessed how frequently unsecured straps result in dozens, if not hundreds, of birds toppling off moving vehicles. But even more prevalent are the overcrowded transport conditions birds must endure on their way to slaughter.
Birds in transport trucks are tightly packed into several tiers of plastic crates, with feces and debris raining down on those stuck below. All 87 survivors of the 2014 crash required treatment for respiratory infections, likely stemming from the congested, stressful, and unsanitary conditions that overcrowding creates.17
According to the Virginia Cooperative Extension, each chicken must be allotted one-half and one square foot of space, while ducks, geese, and turkeys require two to three square feet.18 The Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services must ensure that birds in transit have adequate space by enshrining the Virginia Cooperative Extension’s recommendations into law.
III. Length of Journey and Lairage
The primary statute governing the treatment of poultry during transport to slaughter is Virginia Code § 3.2-6508, which prohibits the confinement of animals for transport longer than twenty-four hours without exercise, rest, feed, and water.19 Virginia’s twenty-four hour law is insufficient to protect the welfare of birds. Leaving any living being, regardless of species, in cramped, unsanitary, and perilous conditions for up to twenty-four hours is both inhumane and unsafe.
Lairage, the period between the arrival of poultry at the slaughterhouse and slaughter itself, is another poorly regulated aspect of the transport process that often results in birds being left for hours or days, even during extreme weather events.20 Similar to transit, heat and cold stress are common in lairage, leading to unnecessary suffering, death, and risk of Salmonella contamination.21
In establishing humane standards of care for poultry during transport, the Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services should enact the following rules:
Transit:22
Lairage:23
Conclusion
Farm Sanctuary calls on the Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services to pass rules enacting minimal welfare standards for poultry in transport. The recommendations set forth in this comment, while significant, do not encompass the full spectrum of considerations pertaining to poultry transport to slaughter. We strongly urge the Virginia Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services to conduct further research on all aspects of poultry transport to slaughter, including handling techniques, maximum transport times, exposure to weather, loading densities, vehicle design, feed and water deprivation, and licensing and training.
We know firsthand how meager government oversight negatively affects the wellbeing of chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys. Regular reviews of USDA enforcement records reveal that every year, tens of thousands of birds suffer excruciating deaths before they even make it to the slaughter line.24 In August 2020, we filed a lawsuit against the USDA in collaboration with the Animal Welfare Institute and Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic. Our objective was to prompt the resolution of systematic poultry mistreatment during slaughter.25 Unfortunately, we are still awaiting the development of poultry handling regulations that meaningfully address concerns related to food safety and bird welfare. This lawsuit is just the beginning, as we are well aware of the numerous regulatory gaps resulting from lack of federal oversight that must be filled.
In light of the absence of federal laws, and adequate state laws, regulating the welfare of poultry during transport to slaughter,26 the state of Virginia must take immediate action to protect Virginia’s birds and communities.
Sources