What's it like to work in a Slaughterhouse?

July 28, 2007 3:39 PM

Slaughterhouse. A brutally honest look behind the scenes. Loads of blood, dead pigs and people inbetween. Recommended for the whole family for sunday dinner - if you like your sausages! [Google Video, NSFW, Not safe for veggies or PETA]
posted by homodigitalis (67 comments total)

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was enough for me, thanks. If the link is as advertised, I don't ever need to see it.
posted by beelzbubba at 3:43 PM on July 28, 2007 [3 favorites]

So far, this is pretty good. Objective and really quite charming. It doesn't bother me much since I so rarely eat meat.

Anyway, who's got that cool Bung Gun video? I can't find it anymore.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:02 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

This was our slaughterhouse. Previously.
posted by Toekneesan at 4:03 PM on July 28, 2007

It doesn't bother me since meat taste so good.
posted by gtr at 4:04 PM on July 28, 2007

Yeah, but bacon tastes good. Porkchops taste good.
posted by nasreddin at 4:12 PM on July 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

Huh. Suddenly being a graphic designer doesn't look so bad.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:14 PM on July 28, 2007

Where was this three weeks ago when I needed it?
posted by ZachsMind at 4:25 PM on July 28, 2007 [3 favorites]

As long as it is dead by the time it is on my plate, I could care less how it happened. These animals are grown to die, and as long as that's not changing, neither will their treatment. And that doesn't bother me at all.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 4:29 PM on July 28, 2007

This is quite good, occassionally graphic, but it's not a politically motivated film. I was surprised at how humane much of the killing is. And yes, charming does work.

Obligatory Simpsons quote:

Troy: Come on Jimmy, let's take a peek at the killing floor.
Jimmy: Ohhh!
Troy: Don't let the name throw you Jimmy. It's not really a floor, it's more of a steel grating that allows material to sluice through so it can be collected and exported. (source)
posted by blue_beetle at 4:35 PM on July 28, 2007

The middle aged fat Texan wants me to eat meat? The cognitive dissonance I'm experiencing is dizzying.

Avoiding farmed meat is pretty much an absolute good in terms of health and environment, and I daresay economy. I'm not absolutely good, however... Boy, when Aunt Flo comes to town, she demands carne asada sometimes. Or gyros... Or corned beef and cabbage... Or Arby's 5 4 5... Salmon and mussels no longer cut the mustard.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2007

Oh, here's the Bung Gun by Jarvis that I love so well. Found it at bung bung. I mean boing boing.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:51 PM on July 28, 2007

For the curious:

The Slaughterman's Creed:

"Thine is the task of blood.

Discharge thy task with mercy.

Let thy victim feel no pain.

Let sudden blow bring death; such death as thou thyself would ask for."

I didn't feel shocked. I actually expected worse, and the relative straightforwardness of the whole thing makes me feel more comfortable about my choice to eat meat.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 5:05 PM on July 28, 2007

I've only skimmed through the video but it seems like the documentary was restricted to abattoires in the UK... are the practices and standards similar in other countries sorry if I missed that in the movie if it was covered.
posted by porpoise at 5:29 PM on July 28, 2007

Awesome.
posted by interchangez at 5:47 PM on July 28, 2007

Wow. I don't expect everyone in the world to stop eating meat, but I am stunned when someone comments that he doesn't care how the animals are treated. Though it sounds like an oxymoron, there is such a thing as humane slaughter (I think Temple Grandin and her work in this area has been discussed here before) and efforts can be made to keep animals from being terrified and in pain before they wind up the way KingoftheWhales likes them, dead on his plate.

KOTW's attitude reminds me of a radio report I heard years ago, in which it was reported that a Northern California restaurant had been cited for serving a delicacy that involved boiling small animals alive. The guy on the radio had the same attitude: the animal died in terror and agony, so what? Does it taste good?

So much for compassion.
posted by OolooKitty at 5:50 PM on July 28, 2007 [9 favorites]

Ambrosia Voyeur: "The middle aged fat Texan wants me to eat meat?"

Fandango_Matt: "No, the middle-aged fat Texan wants us to watch him rant incoherently on YouTube."

Fandango_Matt answered correctly. Don Pardo? Tell him what he's won!

"A NEW CAR!"
posted by ZachsMind at 6:08 PM on July 28, 2007

Burhanistan : "..animals that die under extreme stress like those of the modern slaughterhouse tend to release all kinds of hormones in fear..."

Homer: "Mmmmm! Fear Hormones!" *drools*
posted by ZachsMind at 6:10 PM on July 28, 2007

How kind of you Fandango to shower me with your praise! I'm all a flutter.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:23 PM on July 28, 2007

Apparently fear hormones give dog meat a taste that is preferred by some Koreans. Thus the butchers that supply that kind of meat club the dogs to death slowly, so they'll release more of that hormone.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 6:24 PM on July 28, 2007

Watch out for the killing blow.
posted by yerfatma at 6:25 PM on July 28, 2007

Uhm, sure KAC, got a cite for that? I don't want to say that sounds like racist bullshit without at least peeking at what you read.
posted by yerfatma at 6:26 PM on July 28, 2007

There you go, yerfatmama, but thanks for the presumption that I'm racist.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 6:36 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'd rather eat stupid people.
posted by 31d1 at 6:40 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Watch your BMI then.
posted by Cyrano at 6:51 PM on July 28, 2007

We don't need to like ourselves for everything we've consumed. The habit of justification, although it sounds great on paper, is probably our most dangerous human tendency. Previous justifications for behavior often become the demand for one we would not have considered otherwise.
posted by Brian B. at 7:19 PM on July 28, 2007

This is interesting stuff. I just finished a course called Animal Science 307: Meats at my college, with an accompanying slaughter laboratory. The very first lab class we slaughtered pigs, with myself both stunning one and cutting the throat of an other (essentially delivering the killing blow). It was an uneasy, eye-opening experience, and yet, I can still eat bacon near-daily with a free conscience. In fact, having seen first-hand how humane the process can be, I feel far less of a hypocrite than I did while eating meat without giving any thought to what lost it's life in the process.

It was also a great comfort for me to find out that there is an economic incentive for humane slaughter. I'm not just talking about fines for improper stunning practices--meat from animals that are stressed in their last hours is very prone to a number of problems ranging from bruising from burst blood vessels (requiring cutting out the ruined meat) to something known as "dark cutting", where the meat is affected by hormones like adrenaline, severely lowering the quality, and thus, the profit.

In fact, the worst part of the entire slaughter process is the way that the carcasses involuntarily keep moving after for up to hours after death. There's nothing like watching a severed cow head blink at you more than half an hour after it's been separated from its body.

(We also slaughtered cattle and then made them into hamburgers, which we then barbecued and ate. Craziest course I've taken yet.)
posted by internet!Hannah at 7:25 PM on July 28, 2007 [9 favorites]

(We also slaughtered cattle and then made them into hamburgers, which we then barbecued and ate. Craziest course I've taken yet.)

"Craziest ... yet?" Animal Science 307: Meats sounds like "Craziest ever."

If you somehow find a course that tops it, please come back and share with the rest of us!
posted by notyou at 7:49 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

The "... When it's over ask yourself: Do I feel like eating meat again?" had me asking myself: Should I even bother watching this?
Please tell me this isn't a Scared Straight/Signal 30 for wannabe vegans.

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was enough for me, thanks. If the link is as advertised, I don't ever need to see it.

Apologies if I'm misinterpreting your comment, but if you're one of the people Sinclair hit in the stomach, rather than the heart, you really need to read The Jungle again. While the economic incentive to treat livestock well is heartening, the labour conditions, at least in North America, are just as important. Good working conditions benefit worker and animal alike, and while people do need to be educated on where their food comes from, showing Babe up on a meathook without any deeper context doesn't help anyone.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'll RTFAWTFM tomorrow.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:59 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

"The less people know about the making of laws and sausages, the better they sleep at night" -Otto von Bismarck
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 8:04 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Isn't "shock the conscience" sort of PETA's bread and butter? I prefer the nakies ad campaigns, thankyou.
posted by spiderwire at 8:08 PM on July 28, 2007

I've only watched half of this, the rest tomorrow sometime. Quite good, so far. It's as much about slaughter and meat processing as one of the few remaining examples of manual "manufacturing" industry in Britain as it is about anything. The post description, and the film's introduction, are both slightly misleading, although not actual misrepresentations.

I've not seen the end, but I do wonder whether we might not be being asked to consider the conditions that the men have to work in to be the moral wrong, rather than the slaughter of the animals.

Gah! Definitely time for bed, I can't seem to form sentences any more.
posted by howfar at 8:15 PM on July 28, 2007

notyou: "If you somehow find a course that tops it, please come back and share with the rest of us!"

Well, in my general animal science class's lab, I got to stick my arm up a cow's hiney in a lesson on artificial insemination. And then we, ah, stimulated a ram to ejaculation in the lecture (!!!) using an electrical anal probe. In light of that, and the animal reproduction course I have coming up, I rule out nothing.
posted by internet!Hannah at 8:29 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

internet!Hannah writes "I got to stick my arm up a cow's hiney in a lesson on artificial insemination."

Wait, wait, cows get pregnant in the ass?
posted by orthogonality at 8:37 PM on July 28, 2007

(Must make for shitty veal.)
posted by orthogonality at 8:37 PM on July 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

Just like it does in people, Burhanistan.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 8:56 PM on July 28, 2007

orthogonality: "Wait, wait, cows get pregnant in the ass?"

Well, no. We have another hand holding the inseminating tool in the vagina. But you have to hold on to the cervix through the rectum to guide the tool through it. It's a two handed job. We weren't actually inseminating the cows, though, just learning how to grab the cervix.

Burhanistan: "Wait, wait. So, there was no shaft manipulation there, just the electric probe up the bung? That makes them shoot their ram load?"

Yup. That's about how it goes. It's quick, too, a matter of seconds. It's the most popular method for semen-collecting for rams. Still, it's an alarming process to observe in a carpeted university lecture hall, let me tell you that.
posted by internet!Hannah at 8:58 PM on July 28, 2007

More details (for people).
posted by StrikeTheViol at 9:01 PM on July 28, 2007

If you actually watch this, as some of you have, you'll see right quick that it has much less to do with the act of animal slaughter and the consumption of meat than it has to do with class and the working environment, as the post title suggests. The interviews are the heart of it and I must say the choice of Chopin (?) as the incidental music is very, very strange. A nice bit of propaganda that seems to have been lost on the commenters here who didn't take the time to watch the film before telling us their POV on eating meat.

I found the interviews with the kosher and halal butchers to be most, um, enlightening. As I compare and contrast I find less to contrast, and speaking as part of the herd I'd rather have the huge electric tongs to the head than the kosher butcher's knife, no matter how sharp it is.
posted by St Urbain's Horseman at 9:13 PM on July 28, 2007

St Urbains: you've put your finger on that great parallel in this film which made me enjoy it so much. The white homeboys' political apathy paired with their dismissive attitudes toward killing helpless critters is pretty fascinating. It makes them seem just as commodified as the meat. I dunno how the beeb does it.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:38 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Killing the pig. How to skin a pig. Stuffing Sausage

no video, just text and pics
posted by lysdexic at 10:23 PM on July 28, 2007

Only two electroejaculator machines exist in the Greater Los Angeles/Ventura/Orange County area.

... the Master and the Apprentice.
posted by Anything at 10:30 PM on July 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

I believe stress hormones are also considered desirable in cobra meat, so they are taunted with a mongoose prior to killing.
posted by subtle_squid at 10:33 PM on July 28, 2007

Great post - my father worked in abottoir for 50 years, lost a couple of fingers along the way. I never managed to go in and see the 'chain' first hand - so this was fascinating, if a little disconcerting at times.

At the expense of sounding religiously ignorant (I have little respect for the practise of religion, particularly in this context), but it's strange, to me, that someone who holds such notions for the sanctity of life, can slaughter an animal so horribly.

You can see the false bravado in the whiteys, probably still latent from their first day, dispassionate, unconscious but quick in their technique - but the conviction of the Kosher slaughterman seemed at odds with his general beliefs - why and how can religion perpetuate such a contradiction, in the 21st century? (rhetorical question)
posted by strawberryviagra at 10:41 PM on July 28, 2007

I'm frankly quite concerned that you guys feel it is appropriate to mention their race as though it matters in this context.

And as for helpless animals ... We'll put you in a cage with a hungry 300 pound bull pig and take bets, no t on whether you survive but on whether the pig feels remorse after it eats you.


At the expense of sounding religiously ignorant (I have little respect for the practise of religion, particularly in this context), but it's strange, to me, that someone who holds such notions for the sanctity of human life, can slaughter an animal so horribly.
fix'd
posted by Rubbstone at 12:03 AM on July 29, 2007

I think the word you're looking for is boar.

If you want to pretend that race doesn't matter in a film depicting working class North England, you're looking for its homophone.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:16 AM on July 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

>Apparently fear hormones give dog meat a taste that is preferred by some Koreans. Thus the butchers that supply that kind of meat club the dogs to death slowly, so they'll release more of that hormone.

>>Uhm, sure KAC, got a cite for that? I don't want to say that sounds like racist bullshit without at least peeking at what you read.

Oh, it's quite true. It's not universal, but amongst the older generation of Korean men (who are, thank god, dying out, are those responsible both for the astonishing success of the country in recent decades and most of things that are still awful about the place, and are the main consumer base for the consumption of dog meat, because they believe that it (and a wide array of other foods) will give them 'stamina' -- code for 'hard dicks') it is considered epicurean.

There is a different attitude (among many but not all, and in particular in the older couple of generations) towards the concept of 'animal cruelty' here in Korea. For some (as in this thread, apparently) it is not even a concept that makes any sense.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:30 AM on July 29, 2007

I liked the video a lot.

It reminded me of the few weeks in the summer when I was 10 or so that I spent working at an uncles abattoir/meat packing plant/dairy farm. One morning a butcher found a fetus in the cow he had just killed. There was a huge argument on who would get to keep it, and as the argument was turning into a fight (literal knife rattling all over the place), someone mentioned the very pregnant girl in the dairy side of the plant. The fight stopped instantly, everyone JUST KNEW that the right thing to do was to give the fetus to the girl. The butcher cleaned it up, cut it up and packed it in some waxed paper. The girl picked it up at the end of her shift, and was very very happy with the gift. I had no time to think of symbolisms, what James George Frazer would say, or if unborn meat is sometimes just meat, because I was busy blowing into fresh pig intestines looking for leaks while someone readied the sausague packing machine.

I also reminded me of "Cronica de una muerte anunciada", where two small town slaughtermen murder a rich guy. They extrapolate from their pig killing experience to give the guy a quick death. Differences between the two animal's anatomy result in the guy stumbling into the kitchen, with his intestines trailing behind him, stinking the whole place up. Garcia Marquez does not elaborate on how long the dead man's eyes continued to blink at the little cook in the kitchen he was going to rape that day.
posted by Dataphage at 12:33 AM on July 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

Are they slaughtering an elephant? Listen at 7:46.
posted by bryanzera at 2:35 AM on July 29, 2007

35:20 "If you look carefully, you can see their souls floating out the door, going up and up... that's why we have that hole there, so they can escape."
posted by Meatbomb at 3:11 AM on July 29, 2007

I have worked in a pig slaughtering plant in the United States. It was huge (they killed about 16,000 pigs a day) and (as much as you probably will not believe it) quite humane. They had animal handling audits every single day on both shifts and they had people come in a couple times a year to make sure that the animals were treated correctly. One interesting thing about pigs is that if they get too stressed (as would happen if they were not treated correctly) prior to slaughter their meat will be of poor quality. Here is a link that gives a bit of information about that.

Craziest ... yet?" Animal Science 307: Meats sounds like "Craziest ever."

That is a very common class for Food Science, Animal Science, and other Agricultural majors. Turns out you can't just stab an animal, rip off the hide, and have the meat turn out well.
posted by catseatcheese at 3:17 AM on July 29, 2007

Rubbstone - did you watch the video?

I think not, or you would understand the reference.

so unfix'd
posted by strawberryviagra at 5:21 AM on July 29, 2007

Oh, it's quite true. It's not universal, but amongst the older generation of Korean men . . . it is considered epicurean.

Friggin' gross. Sorry for doubting how horrible we can be, KAC.
posted by yerfatma at 6:12 AM on July 29, 2007

A remarkable short documentary film about Paris, animal slaughter and life: "Le sang des bêtes" (1949). IMDB.
posted by MarshallPoe at 6:30 AM on July 29, 2007

We'll put you in a cage with a hungry 300 pound bull pig and take bets, no t on whether you survive but on whether the pig feels remorse after it eats you.

Animals are incapable of moral discernment and therefore exempt from judgment. This is an argument structure for not just eating meat being okay, but for murdering human beings as well.

...but I notice that this sort of "that's how it is in nature!" ridiculousness and denials-of-responsibility seem to be almost exclusive to meat-eaters' self-justifications.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:59 AM on July 29, 2007

And then we, ah, stimulated a ram to ejaculation in the lecture (!!!) using an electrical anal probe.

I'm still haunted by the memory of hearing a bull getting semen-tested by an incompetent vet who set the voltage too high.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:10 AM on July 29, 2007

"The less people know about the making of laws and sausages, the better they sleep at night" -Otto von Bismarck

It'd be great if this post featured a supplemental link to CSPAN.
posted by brundlefly at 9:59 AM on July 29, 2007

Not safe for veggies or PETA

Um, have you seen a PETA video lately? A bit more graphic.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:34 AM on July 29, 2007

notyou: "If you somehow find a course that tops it, please come back and share with the rest of us!"

A very small farming community in downstate Illinois, ca 1964; our eighth grade fall field trip was to the slaughterhouse to watch hogs being butchered. At the end of the tour, we were offered our choice of a ball point pen or a hot dog. (good times, good times!)
posted by cookie-k at 10:55 AM on July 29, 2007

I am so glad they didn't film in Smell-O-Vision.™ I'll still eat meat but man were those people's interviews depressing.
posted by Grod at 11:22 AM on July 29, 2007

Since I have awakened to the reality of the brutal, hapless deaths calves, cows, donkeys, ponies and horses grazing in bucolic pastures suffer, I no longer see pleasant country scenes but sad slaughter house waiting lines. I didn't become vegetarian based on this information but now, for so many reasons, am increasingly grateful I've been one for the last 36 years.
posted by chance at 12:42 PM on July 29, 2007

Oh my god. It’s like a Gwar concert.
(and now I can't get the Powermad tune out of my head)
posted by Smedleyman at 9:19 AM on July 30, 2007

So if pigs, cows, donkeys, horses and ponies somehow lived in the wild... how would they die?
posted by tkchrist at 1:34 PM on July 30, 2007

Well, they do live in the wild. Boar aren't even endangered. They die of starvation, disease, maybe freezing sometimes, and occasionally predation, though at lower rates worldwide than previously due to our elimination of wolves. The same goes generally goes for the undomesticated bovines and wild or feral horses.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:52 PM on July 30, 2007

They die of starvation, disease, maybe freezing sometimes, and occasionally predation, though at lower rates worldwide than previously due to our elimination of wolves.

Starvation. Disease. Those are not very pleasant ways to die. So I suppose it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Suffice it to say that cows, pigs, horses, donkeys (and ponies) could not in the wild... what little "wild" there is... exist in numbers even close to the populations that are currently domesticated.

Undomesticated bovines? Cows. Wild cows. Where are these wild cows? I'm curious.
posted by tkchrist at 3:55 PM on July 30, 2007

So I suppose it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Unless you factor the environmental damage farming animals has caused, and only if you don't think that there's a difference in the quality of life of a wild boar and a domesticated ham factory pig. I personally don't care nearly as much how I die as how I live, and I have the same projected ideals about animal life.

Why is the idea you suggest - that we farm and slaughter more pigs and cows than would naturally be sustained by the wild, of any importance whatsoever? Do you believe in a Catholic Cow God who's glorified by their mooey fruitfulness?

As for wild bovines, surely you've hear of yaks? Buffalo/Bison? These and a couple others are species closely related enough to interbreed with our Herefords, Holsteins or whathaveyou.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:15 PM on July 30, 2007

Why is the idea you suggest - that we farm and slaughter more pigs and cows than would naturally be sustained by the wild, of any importance whatsoever?

I dunno. You tell me. It's just a curiosity. If we don't eat or use all these domesticated animals... what happens to them? We make them pets? Or we let nature take it's course until the populations stabilize to a self sustaining level. IF they can. And I have serious doubts that with out constant and sustained human intervention these animals would survive at all.
So. Do we let these animals die out or what?

Do you believe in a Catholic Cow God who's glorified by their mooey fruitfulness?

No. But they might.

I am all in favor of the humane treatment of food animals. But I come from a ranching family. Those this what not factory ranching and tha animals ranged; I have slaughtered pigs, chickens, and cows. And I have seen animals suffer from disease. I have seen starving Elk.

And I guarantee you putting a bullet through the head of a calf was far more humane that allowing it to perish of Cortical necrosis or what have you.
posted by tkchrist at 12:36 PM on July 31, 2007

If we don't eat or use all these domesticated animals... what happens to them?

They die and we don't breed any more. I hope. Well, better to eat them and not breed any more. I'm not interested in the frankencritters we've bred for domestication running free. That's seriously retarded.

I also come from a range ranching family, Air Force who settled outside Rapid City. Small world. My college fund was a cow.

I don't have an issue with killing animals with good reason; it's my preferred method of obtaining meat. So far I've only offed salmon and smaller fish with my own two pretty white hands. I want to know if I could kill something bigger, but it's hard when you know you'll never really need to. But hey, even deer eat deer if they get a good chance.

What I am against is wasting resources to breed animals for food. And I'm against starving Elk, too. But that's largely a result of farming too, isn't it?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:11 PM on July 31, 2007