guy's mind

Actor Bea Arthur, best known for playing Dorothy on The Golden Girls, narrated PETA’s “Kentucky Fried Cruelty” video, which illustrates the worst abuses suffered by chickens at the hands of KFC’s factory-farm and slaughterhouse suppliers. Bea also lent her talents to 30- and 60-second radio and TV public service announcements calling on consumers to boycott KFC until it agrees to make changes in the treatment of the animals raised for its restaurants.

Transcript

Hello, I’m Bea Arthur, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. You may have heard of the Kernel's Secret Recipe? But you probably have no idea what goes into the making of a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s fried chicken. Sadly, the main ingredient is cruelty.

The more than 700 million chickens raised each year for Kentucky Fried Chicken are treated like meat machines, not animals. They’re crammed by the tens of thousands into sheds, their throats burn as they try to breathe air filled with ammonia fumes from accumulated waste. They routinely suffer broken bones from being bred to be top heavy, from rough handling, and from being shackled upside down at the slaughterhouse.

Many chickens are still conscious as their throats are cut, or when they’re dumped into tanks of scalding hot water to have their feathers removed. When they’re killed, chickens are still babies not yet 2 months old out of a natural life span of 10 to 15 years. These chickens never feel the sun on their backs or the earth beneath their feet.


Debeaking

Despite Kentucky Fried Chicken’s claims, parent birds on supplier farms have their beaks chopped off soon after they’re hatched. This horribly painful procedure can make eating excruciating for weeks and the shock of it sometimes kills the birds. Cutting a beak off is not like trimming your nails, it’s like having the tips of your fingers chopped off. The pain goes on for weeks and can even result in slow starvation.


Lame and Crippled Chickens

Because broiler chickens are bred and drugged in order to grow at an unusually fast pace, the birds become so fat so quickly, that their bodies cannot keep up. Their hearts, lungs, and other organs find it difficult to support their massive size and can fail. Their weak legs cannot support their heavy chests and often snap underneath them resulting in lameness.


Catching of Chickens

Catching the birds for transport to slaughter is extremely harmful to them, when done by poorly paid workers. The catchers gather four or five birds at a time and violently hurl them into crates, often breaking their bones and bruising them.


Slaughter of Chickens

When KFC chickens arrive at the slaughterhouse, they’re dumped out of their transport crates, and their weak, bruised, or broken legs are snapped into metal shackles. The birds are then run through an electric stun bath. The company will often set the voltage in the stun bath so low that the birds are not rendered and sensible to pain and, instead, often suffer painful shocks before they’re stunned. The birds then have their throats slit. Finally, they’re dumped into a tank of scalding water to remove their feathers. Some birds are still alive and conscious through the entire, frightening, and painful procedure.


We need your help to convince KFC to take some key steps to reduce the suffering inflicted on these gentle animals. Please, visit KentuckyFriedCruelty.com to learn what you can do to help, and please, call 1-888-VEG-FOOD for a free Vegetarian Starter Kit.

Thank you.