Could you work in a Slaughterhouse?

[dd614]

I have no problem killing animals for food and have done so, but I think doing it for a living on an industrial scale would be a pretty shitty job.

[Vash The Stampede]

No, but it isn't because I love animals. Not exactly a huge fan seeing things torn apart.

[Kaganfindel]

I've slaughtered chickens and deer, but I don't know how I'd do with it as a profession. Killing things that aren't grievously, irrecoverably wounded has weight, and I don't know how I'd bear up under that day in and day out.

[Burgerberg]

The guy who came up with the world's first animal rights laws, and who also happened to be a staunch vegan, hails you.

Animal cruelty laws have existed long before Hitler. And he wasn't a vegan - one of his favourite foods was blood sausage.

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Don't most slaughterhouse workers, at least those working on the killing floor, suffer forms of depression and PTSD? I believe there's a book on this, but its name escapes me.

I don't know why people are comparing this to hunting - you kill what you need, out in nature. This is industrialised, en masse killing. I'd say it's a bit different to hunting.

[The5thVegetable]

Possibly- at the very least, I'm confident I could get used to it, heck maybe even enjoy it to a certain extent. The main issue I feel, would be the smell. That might get to me.

[Beardless Man]

I live in a family who go hunting, and it's not uncommon to see a gutted deer in our front yard of my uncle's or grandparents. Since we have eaten our hunted meats. I don't think I could actively work in one since I'm not huge on it. But I think I've got enough history with hunting to where if I had to, I would.

[Templar 331]

I used to work in a hamburger factory. Had to grind up frozen cow hearts with cow fat all day long. The worst thing was when the frozen blood thawed out and ran onto your lab coat. :/

[Atrea]

I have. I wouldn't again though.

It isn't the sounds, or the smells, or any crap about guilty feelings -- I eat meat, and I know what happens to my meat before it arrives on my plate. I am comfortable with that.

It's the heat. It's simply too hot of an environment to work in.

Picture this; in the chicken/rabbit slaughterhouse I worked at, every worker wore a jumpsuit, knee high rubber boots, a heavy rubber apron, rubber gloves over top of cotton gloves (and if you worked on the kill floor, at least one chain glove), a hairnet, a helmet and a plastic face shield, and if on the kill floor, a surgical mask (so you don't breathe in feathers.)

At the time, I lived in Ontario, and I worked there in the middle of the summer. Temperatures there can reach the mid-high 30s (without considering humidity) -- that's in Celsius, so all of you American friends can calculate that into moonspeak if you wish.

On top of that, if you are stationed anywhere near the kill floor, the defeathering machine is nearby. If you've never seen one of these things in action, they are basically tanks of boiling water with what look like really large whisks. The chickens go in fully clothed (lol) and come out bare. The steam from this boiling water makes the relative humidity of the surrounding area extremely high. Add this to already hot summer temperatures, and the fact that you're wearing enough clothes to make you sweat even in the refrigerated areas of the plant, and well...


Everyone thinks "oh killing animals for food, I couldn't stand to see that!" -- but in my experience, it's the heat that'll really get to you.

[Molis]

No but that does not stop me from eating a Rib Eye.


The poll is severely flawed.

No has nothing to do with loving animals.