The most beautiful 25 pounds I ever carried

Dear Editor,

She didn’t try to escape from my arms, maybe because she felt safe with me. I could feel her heart beating right next to mine when I carried her from Norbest Turkey Processing Plant (slaughterhouse) to a farm sanctuary. The most beautiful 25 pounds I ever carried!

Like most people, I had never seen a live turkey. I always thought turkeys were meant for Thanksgiving Day, but one cold winter evening in 2018 in Moroni, Utah changed my perspective about Thanksgiving turkeys forever. As a part of a mass rescue action I had the privilege to carry Sara, a turkey who was moments away from death, to a safe happy farm sanctuary. It was the first time Sara was held in someone’s arms. Turkeys are usually held by their feet, upside down at farms.

At the sanctuary, Sara walked on the green grass for the first time in her life. It took her a few weeks before she started coming close to her caretakers. She reminded me of my first rescue dog; it took months before he would let me pet him because of the abuse he had previously suffered.  

I noticed Sara’s beak looked broken. I learned “debeaking and toe cutting” of baby turkeys, without anesthesia or pain killers, is a standard industry practice, used to prevent injury in overcrowded sheds.

Sheds are often overcrowded to maximize profit. Sara was bred to grow extra-large in a very short period of five months. Five months is the average slaughter age of Thanksgiving turkeys. Wild turkeys can live up to ten years. Commercialized turkeys are bred to grow so fast, and so big, that they can’t even reproduce naturally; farmers have to artificially inseminate them. This is another common standard practice at turkey farms. It’s like looking at a two-year-old human child weighing 200lbs.  

Forty-six million turkeys like Sara are killed for just one Thanksgiving Day in the US every year. Thanksgiving is a beautiful, traditional holiday to be celebrated with our loved ones, and it can be celebrated without hurting baby birds like Sara.

Luckily, Sara never has to go back to windowless, overcrowded metal sheds, or wait in the slaughter line.

Maybe none of the 46 million turkeys will ever have to go there if we choose compassion and kindness towards all beings this Thanksgiving. Hopefully then, I will never feel the need to carry any 25 pounds from a slaughterhouse to a sanctuary ever again. 

Madhu Anderson

Rock Springs