Touring the Slaughterhouse

I was one of the 9 people who went on the slaughterhouse tour. You may be wondering why I'm writing this post on Sunday when we went on Friday. Well, the answer to that, if I'm being honest, is that I just did not want to think about what I had seen too in depth. 

This isn't because they did anything that I would call the police about or anything. In fact, the whole system was very well regulated and organized compared to what I had thought it would be after reading Slaughterhouse.  The people who gave us the tour were very friendly and readily answered all our questions (they literally had an answer for everything). The building itself seemed very up to date. But as soon as we got there and I saw trucks pulling in full of cattle, and thought about where they were going, I started feeling sick. 

There were so many small details that I could share, but I will stick with the biggest portions of the tour for this blog since it's already going to be pretty long. I apologize in advance.  

They told us when we started the tour that we would begin in the cleanest sections of the process and then work our way towards the more "messy" sections. Clean consisted of boxes and packaging of meat, which created a false sense of ease. 

The first room that really shocked me was this HUGE room just full of workers, of all ages, doing every job from cutting fat off meat, to cutting meat off of hanging carcasses. 
Throughout the whole tour the thing that struck me most was how each worker had a job where they did the same little task over and over. I don't know how they could stand doing that day in and day out. Especially not the job which I'm about to tell you about.. 

We walked into a hallway at one point, which I noticed had a little more blood on the floor than the other places, and above our heads there was a pulley system taking the hooves of cattle to a different room. At that point we were all asked if we wanted to see the sticking process. No one said no but there was definitely hesitation. The tour guide took three of us at a time into the room where it happened. As soon I walked in, I was assailed by the sight of freshly knocked cattle and a (this is the only way I could think to describe it) "WATERFALL" of blood streaming out of them into a dark red river below them as the worker cut their throats over and over and over.... While I was recovering from shock, the tour guide pointed out a man in a black hat and explained that his only job was to make sure that there were no conscious cattle coming into this room, otherwise he had to use a knocking gun on them again. So there's that. 

It was surreal seeing all that blood, though. I couldn't believe it.

Then immediately after that was the knocking room. I think this is the room that affected everyone the most, because, again, no one said no to witnessing the process. 

There were two cement walls blocking in the cattle, who were literally face to butt packed walking in, and then there were two workers whose jobs it was to keep the line moving. Moving forward. Straight to the other side...where the end was waiting. That may sound dramatic, but it was hard to not get a little emotional/philosophical as you watch the completely unaware cattle looking around the room...even making eye contact with us... and all I wanted to do was pet them all. Maybe even take them all home with me.. 

When it was our turn to see the knocking, of course something had to go wrong. The tour guide explained the process as we watched one cow after another come through the hole and immediately get knocked in the head by the gun (there is a rod inside it that is pushed by air, like a normal gun, and it's supposed to split the brain in half). Then one cow came through that the worker holding the gun could not reach since it put its head down. The worker immediately pushed a button to stop the process, and the cow started struggling and thrashing around. A burst of air in its face was all it took to get it to look up... and the process continued.

This whole experience is one that I know will stick with me forever. The scent of the slaughterhouse is still lingering in my nose. 

Though this particular company seems to have figured out better ways of doing things, I still feel like there are many flaws to the whole system. Visiting a slaughterhouse, though it may affect you deeply, is something I would recommend that everyone should try at least once. I doubt you would want to go a second time, though.