PETA talks turkey

WASHINGTON – An animal rights group that owns stock in Hormel Foods Corp. is pressuring the nation’s largest turkey processor to use a more humane method of slaughtering the birds.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants Hormel to use a technique that “puts the birds to sleep” rather than the current method, in which turkeys are hung upside down and stunned in electrically charged water before their throats are slit.

PETA has placed a shareholder resolution on the agenda for Hormel’s Jan. 31 shareholders meeting. It calls on the board of directors to report to shareholders by next July on the feasibility of controlled atmosphere killing, a process in which the birds are put to sleep with inert gases such as nitrogen or argon.

Hormel says three of its four plants use a similar technique, controlled atmosphere stunning, that renders the turkeys unconscious prior to slaughter.

PETA claims that turkeys raised by Hormel subsidiary Jennie-O Turkey Store Inc. often suffer broken bones while being put into shackles, and some are fully conscious when their throats are slit. Others miss the neck cutters and are scalded alive in de-feathering tanks, PETA said.

Hormel denied those allegations.