Thanksgiving Slaughter

Oh! Well that didn't work well.

Hi guys! I don't know if you guys are still there.

My phone totally died, I've been here for a while, pretty early...

and I also under-estimated how cold it is, so my hands are a bit not functional at the moment.

I had to come back to the... I got, cause this is the kinda person I am...

I got this rental car. I don't have a car so I got a rental car explicitly to come and do this.

Totally worth it.

So right in front of me, I'm going to flip you guys around...

Hold on... I just found out I can do that.

So, that is the shed that we were in.

You can see it there.

So there's this, it's a shed, and there's rows of fans that go between the trucks.

They park the trucks between the fans.

And during the hot months, they're blowing and the turkeys sit on these trucks for hours and hours.

And they're just crammed in there, I mean if you...

It's kind of a perverse holiday, honestly.

These are living beings.

I don't know how long they're going to sit on the trucks today.

They're still there. They were there when I got here.

I got here a little later than I wanted because I saw a truck pull over at a gas station with pigs.

So I also was with pigs this morning.

And they were so...

They were so trusting, these pigs.

It was coming right up to me and...

Some of them looked just so terrified.

It's so hard leaving them too because for them and for these turkeys,

this is...this is their death day. This is the last day of their lives.

They, you know, bring them and unload them in the night and in the early morning.

There's actually a job posting right now online for this facility, of...

The position is literally called "Live Hang."

So your job is to pull the turkeys out of the truck and hang them.

Here's another great thing... oh that's my face, hold on.

There's... Well I guess you can't see the school bus.

There's a school bus right here.

Earlier this morning when I first got here,

there was a school bus that pulled in to the turkey shed for a little bit.

So let's see if we can go through.

See if I don't lose you.

This is where we were earlier...

in between these trucks.

There's where families live.

Kids play right here, and then here's another one.

Inside, earlier this morning there were, it was full of trucks that were full.

But now uhm...

Now they've been emptied.

Okay so let me flip you guys back around.

So... (sigh)

You can kind of see, I mean this is, it's a huge, huge building and facility.

And basically...

There's kind of like a, it's like a really celebrated story actually, this place.

And, you know it was, it was like a slaughter facility, a slaughter house, and it was going to close.

And then the local turkey farmers here kind of banded together and raised funds and everything.

And then they, they bought the facility.

So now, what it is today, it's primarily a processing plant.

So they bring in, you know, like... carcasses of other species too. You know, cows and pigs.

They process the meat all the way through to package ready, like Balogna and these kind of things.

But, they still slaughter turkeys.

So the turkeys are, are the only animals that they, they slaughter here.

But most of it is, is like a plant for processing the other animals.

So it's kind of seen as this like, David and Goliath story of like...

you know, like a victory for the farmers.

But no one thinks of the turkeys though.

I also have to be careful because eventually they're gonna wonder

why I'm doing so many drive-bys with an iPhone.

So again here's the, some of the trucks are in here full.

All of these were full.

OK, so that's kind of, that's kind of the runaround there.

I mean, and you know there's like a (sigh)

like I said there's a playground right there...

There's, you know, kids playing in their houses right next to...

This shed of turkeys.

It's heartbreaking.

I don't think...

I don't know if I have enough battery guys 'cause like,

I mean, I'm on... I'm like charging my phone literally plugged into this car,

because I ran out of battery while filming the turkeys.

So I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get enough charge to bring you guys back...

To bring you back for the turkeys. I'm hoping...

Alright, I'm trying to see if I can...

I can't see my battery right now!

And, trying to check my batteries to see if I can take you guys back in there real quick.

Before they take them.

Alright...

Alright guys, I'm going to...

I'm gonna stop this stream really quick, and check my battery.

And see if I have enough to be able to bring you guys back to the turkeys. OK?

I think we can make it work for just a little bit longer.

Although they might be coming out soon, the workers. So we'll see.

But, actually let's see if I can, let's see if I can keep you guys on here, and get out there.

Hold on.

I do have a video for you guys today by the way.

I got the, it's another Gregor, it's a new Gregor video.

And I, you know, I worked on it all night.

I slept about 20 minutes so that I could get that video done and come here.

So I'll still post that today but I just felt that this was really important

to share with you guys as soon as I could.

Alright, let's see if we can get back over there. (door opens and shuts)

Alright.

(tumbling noises)

Oh! I dropped you! It's ok.

(turkeys rustling and clucking)

This is nothing to be thankful for.

(turkeys rustling and clucking)

(a turkey frantically clucks and struggles in another cage)

(turkeys rustling and clucking)

You know they have personalities,

and they certainly want to live.

Even if we, even if we say that they're not intelligent, which I don't believe,

intelligence doesn't have anything to do with wanting to live and with feeling pain.

It's just one of the justifications we try to use.

I mean look at them and tell me that they don't know any better.

(turkeys rustling and clucking)

A truck load of turkeys this morning.