Restraint

Sometimes, it's really hard to go out and not scream at people, to not grab them and shake them, demanding an answer to "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I want to know why they don't care. I want to know what hardened their hearts to the extent that stories like this won't move them in any meaningful way.

Telling people that 45 million turkeys will be eaten on Thanksgiving and shit out the next day doesn't mean anything. It's an abstract number. 45 million is too large to comprehend.

Eleven though, eleven is a number that people can comprehend.

And one, yes, people can handle one, especially when that number has a name - Kasey.

It was not yet Thanksgiving, but everyone at our Orland shelter had turkeys on the brain when 11 poults were dropped off at the sanctuary. The exact provenance of these young turkeys is a mystery, but because they arrived here debeaked and detoed, we know that they were likely born on a factory farm, so we are especially thankful that they somehow made their way to our door.

Our first concern was providing healthcare to these tiny birds. Several initially displayed symptoms of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, which we treated by adding antibiotics to their water. One of the poults, Kasey, arrived with a distended abdomen and appeared lethargic the next morning, so we drove her to the University of California, Davis Veterinary Hospital for emergency care. Despite exhaustive treatment efforts, Kasey passed away the next day as a result of a virus that had destroyed her liver.

Or another named Hayden:

Back at the shelter, the other poults were growing rapidly and exploring their cozy new habitat in our hospital. Their flourishing was checked, however, by an illness we could not identify, which caused walking and balancing trouble for most and left some unable to stand. We monitored them closely during this time, providing the best veterinary care and the most comfort possible. To our grief, a poult named Hayden was severely affected and, though we did everything we could for him, he passed away.

Hayden and Kasey are gone. Just birds, right? Fuck you.

At least they died loved. At least they died with dignity. Their 270 million cousins, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and mates who will never be all suffer the indignity and misery of living their lives effectively immobilized, having been mutilated at birth, living in filth and disease, under constant light, indoors, fed fake food to make them fat and kept alive on drugs just long enough to kill them so that you all can get fat and sick, just like them. 270 million every year. Just about every person in America slits a turkey's throat once a year, or rather, pays someone else to do it.

What kind of sick fucks would build something like this? Humans, that's what kind.