New Way to Help Chickens Cross to Other Side

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New Way to Help Chickens Cross to Other Side

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Shoppers in the supermarket today can buy chicken free of nearly everything but

adjectives. It comes free-range, cage-free, antibiotic-free, raised on

vegetarian feed, organic, even air-chilled.

Coming soon: stress-free?

Two premium chicken producers, Bell & in Pennsylvania and 's Chickens

in California, are preparing to switch to a system of killing their birds that

they consider more humane. The new system uses carbon dioxide gas to gently

render the birds unconscious before they are hung by their feet to have their

throats slit, sparing them the potential suffering associated with conventional

slaughter methods.

" When you grab a chicken, turn it upside down and put it on the line, it's

stress, stress, stress, " said Sechler, the owner of Bell & . " Our

system is designed so that we put them to sleep without stress and we kill them

without stress. "

That is sure to appeal to a segment of the chicken-buying public. But telling

them about it presents a marketing challenge.

" Most of the time, people don't want to think about how the animal was killed, "

said Pitman, whose family owns 's Chickens.

Anglia Autoflow, the company that is building the knock-out systems for the two

processors, calls the process " controlled atmosphere stunning, " but Mr. Pitman

said his company was considering the phrase " sedation stunning " for use on its

packages. Also on the short-list: " humanely slaughtered, " " humanely processed "

or " humanely handled. "

The trick, he said, is to communicate the goal of the new system, which is to

ensure that the birds " not have any extra pain or discomfort in the last few

minutes of their lives. "

In a typical processing plant, birds are unloaded in what is known as the " live

hang area. " Workers hang the chickens upside down from metal shackles connected

to a mechanical rail that conveys them into the plant. They go first into a unit

that uses a mild electric shock to make them unconscious, and then they are

brought to the " kill machine, " where a blade cuts their throat and they bleed to

death.

In the new system, birds will arrive at the processing plant in special

containers that will go directly into a chamber to which carbon dioxide is

slowly added, displacing some of the oxygen and making the birds unconscious.

Only then will workers handle the birds and hang them on the shackles.

Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a

prominent livestock expert, consulted with Bell & as the company worked

with Anglia to design its system. She said it was better because the chickens

were not aware of what was happening to them. " Birds don't like being hung

upside down, " Dr. Grandin said. " They get really stressed out by that. "

Mr. Sechler said the system was designed to put birds to sleep gently, in the

same way that a person undergoes anesthesia before surgery.

To evoke that image, he wants to put the words " slow induction anesthesia " on

his packages and advertising, which already tell customers that the birds are

raised in roomy conditions with natural light and given feed free of antibiotics

or animal byproducts. Customers who want to know more will be able to go to the

company's Web site.

Mr. Sechler said the system he chose, after years of research, was better than

similar gas-stunning systems used in Europe. Those systems, he says, often

deprive birds of oxygen too quickly, which may cause them to suffer. They are

also designed to kill the birds rather than simply knock them out, something

that Mr. Sechler is not comfortable with.

" I don't want the public to say we gas our chickens, " he said.

Mr. Sechler and others promoting the new system said that they expected the meat

to be of higher quality because the birds faced less stress and also there would

be less bruising and broken wings when they died.

The new system is also meant to be better for workers. The live hang area today

is usually dimly lighted to keep birds from being startled, and workers have to

contend with struggling, flapping chickens. " I never felt comfortable showing

people that part of our operation, " Mr. Pitman said. " I was embarrassed by it. "

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been

pushing chicken processors for years to switch to gas stunning systems, in part

because it does not believe that electrical stunning works.

But the National Chicken Council, which represents chicken processors, contends

that electrical stunning systems are effective and humane. Lobb, a

spokesman for the council, said that being shackled upside down was not overly

stressful for the birds. " They are shackled and they typically stay there

quietly, " Mr. Lobb said.

Bell & said it would begin selling chickens slaughtered using the new

technology in April. The company, which processes about 840,000 birds a week,

distributes its chickens nationwide.

's, which distributes in several Western states, expects to install the

technology in June. The company processes about 200,000 birds a week.

By comparison, a single plant run by a large processor like Tyson Foods may

handle more than 1 million birds a week.

The gas technology is expensive. Each company said it would cost about $3

million to convert their operations and more over time to run the systems. That

makes it a hard sell in a commodity-oriented industry that relies on huge

volumes and low costs to turn narrow margins into profits.

Mr. Sechler predicted that consumers would come to demand birds slaughtered in

the new way, which would force the industry to gradually switch over.

But to demand it, consumers have to know about it, which gets back to the

language on the label.

A Nebraska company, MBA Poultry, which sells under the Smart Chicken brand, has

been using gas stunning technology since 2005. The company does not aggressively

market the technology, but a label on the back of its packages contains the

phrase " controlled atmosphere stunning. " The company's Web site mentions the

technology but does not explain what it is.

In Britain, although many chicken processors use gas stunning, store packages

typically do not mention it.

" People don't want to know too much, " said Marc , a senior scientific

manager in the farm animals department of the Royal Society for the Prevention

of Cruelty to Animals, in London. " It's hard to sell humane killing as a

concept. "