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Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns Urge Sara Lee Foods to Cover Turkeys with Tarps in Freezing Temperatures; animal welfare expert Temple Grandin agrees
 
Two animal advocacy organizations – Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns – are calling upon Sara Lee Foods to cover their trucks taking turkeys to slaughter in cold, windy weather. In January 2007, Animals’ Angels investigators followed a densely loaded turkey truck for 4 hours to the Sara Lee Foods slaughter plant in Storm Lake, Iowa. Despite the frigid temperature of 16 Degrees Fahrenheit - including 14mph winds and 85-90% humidity recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - the truck afforded the birds no protection from the cold and wind. Photos show ice and snow on the cages and birds crammed into broken containers. According to chief investigator Twyla Francois, “in the video we obtained during transport, you can see the birds’ feathers flapping in the wind. They are fully exposed to the cold and wind.”  

Upon arrival at the slaughter plant, the turkeys sat for yet another 2 hours in the open cold as the truck waited in line to enter the plant.

Concerned with these findings, Animals’ Angels spoke with two Sara Lee employees about the turkeys’ exposure to the freezing cold and their frostbitten heads and feet. The men replied: “We cut those parts off.” They said the trucks were not tarped because the birds were all coming from within 15 miles of the slaughter plant. “This was hard to believe,” said Sonja Meadows, Executive Director of Animals’ Angels USA, “since our investigators had just followed one of their trucks for four hours and watched as the trailer waited in line for an additional two hours.”
 
The Sara Lee Corporation sells its turkey products under brand names that include Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean, and Ball Park. It has plant operations in Minneapolis and Eden Prairie, Minnesota and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota as well as in Iowa. The company presents itself as warmhearted and ethically responsible: “Integrity is more than just being a good person and treating others as you would like to be treated. Integrity is about doing the right thing in every circumstance,” according to Sara Lee Executive Vice President, Theo de Kool, on the company’s Website.
 
“We applaud Sara Lee’s commitment to doing the right thing in every circumstance,” says United Poultry Concerns President Karen Davis. “The circumstance in which these turkeys are being trucked to slaughter has got to be made right. Sara Lee should cover their turkeys with tarps. On the Eastern Shore where United Poultry Concerns is located, I often see trucks taking chickens to slaughter with boards on both sides of the cages when the temperature drops.”       
 
Turkeys and chickens subjected to temperatures below freezing are susceptible to painful frostbite and severe cold stress – hypothermia – in which in which body temperatures fall dramatically. Birds become more or less comatose and mortality increases as dehydration and exhaustion overwhelm the birds’ ability to warm themselves. 
Sara Lee claims the company adheres to “strict animal welfare guidelines established by the National Turkey Federation”; however, NTF says merely that “wind protection in winter” is “important to minimize stress.” According to animal welfare expert Temple Grandin of Colorado State University: “If it’s cold enough for birds to get frostbite, management at Sara Lee needs to provide wind protection on their trailers.”  

As well as Sara Lee and other privately owned companies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture should intervene directly to rectify this very serious and yet easily resolved animal welfare problem affecting hundreds of millions of birds each year in the U.S. 
 

In 2006, following a legal petition filed by several animal protection groups including Animals’ Angels, the USDA reversed its decades-long policy of excluding farmed animals from protection during long-distance truck transport – yet, egregiously, the USDA continues to ignore the nearly 10 billion turkeys, chickens and other birds being trucked to slaughter every year in this country.
 
However, Sara Lee does not have to wait for USDA to act. Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns are calling upon Sara Lee Foods to show compassion to the company’s turkeys and to live up to its own prized standards by covering the birds with tarpaulins, sideboards and/or other protective devices in freezing temperatures. This simple act of kindness would reduce much suffering for these birds.