Other than the small percentage of animals raised for organic certification, there are no federal laws or regulations that address the treatment of poultry or any other animals raised for food while they are on the farm.[1,2]
Wagman, B.A. et al., (2019) Animal Law: Cases and Material, Sixth Ed., Carolina Academic Press, Chapter 6, Commercial Uses of Animals — Section 1, Animals Raised or Slaughtered for Food, p. 486.
Animal Welfare Institute (2021) Legal Protections for Animals on Farms, p.1. https://awionline.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/FA-AWI-LegalProtections-AnimalsonFarms-110714.pdf [“No single federal law expressly governs the treatment of animals used for food while on farms in the United States. In fact, these animals do not have legal protections until they are transported off the farm. Even then, poultry, which account for 98 percent of animals raised for food, do not fall under the protection of the few federal laws that apply to livestock.”]
No. Poultry are not mentioned in the 28-Hour Law. They may have been excluded because at the time of passage in 1873, selling and transporting poultry products far from the family farm was uncommon. Even at the end of WWII, poultry production was still largely a farm sideline.[1,2]
Neither the 28-Hour Law nor its enacted regulations has been amended to reference any animals other than livestock, and the USDA has confirmed its position that the statute does not apply to birds. The only court addressing the issue stated in a decision issued nearly a hundred years ago, “Its provisions are confined to the transportation of animals in these words: ‘cattle, sheep, swine or other animals.’ It does not apply to poultry; birds are not animals.”[3]
Thousands of birds suffer during transport. A recent review of USDA inspection records by Animal Welfare Institute revealed cases that involved birds dead on arrival, either from extreme cold or heat.[4] Other organizations, as well as undercover investigations, have found similar incidents in which thousands of birds died on transport trucks that were left outside overnight in severe weather conditions.[5]
National Chicken Council, Industry History, https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/industry/history/
Schurr, S. et al., (1990) Electricity in the American Economy: Agent of Technological Progress, Greenwood Press, New York, NY, p. 244.
Wagman, B.A. et al., (2019) Animal Law: Cases and Material, Sixth Ed., Carolina Academic Press, p. 486, citing Clay v New York Cent. R.R. Co., 231 N.Y.S. 424, 424 (N.Y. App. Div. 1928).
Dena Jones & Zack Strong (2023) The Welfare of Birds at Slaughter in the United States: The Need for Government Regulation, Animal Welfare Institute, p. 12. [2021: 2,552 dead birds out of 6000 on a trailer left outside with temperature over 90 degrees Farenheit; more than 8,000 birds over 3 days arrived DOA (several trailers with ice accumulation and birds frozen to the crates). Note: The USDA FSIS inspection records are generated under the Poultry Products Inspections Act (PPIA). See, PPIA question below]
Dena Jones & Zack Strong (2023), pp. 22-26.
No. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act specifies that it applies to “cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine, and other livestock.”[1] The USDA has confirmed poultry are not covered by HMSA.[2]
Humane Methods of Slaughter Act 7 U.S.C. 48 § 1902
USDA, Food Safety and Inspection Service (2005) Treatment of Live Poultry Before Slaughter. 70 Fed. Reg. 56624. [“The HMSA of 1978 (7 U.S.C.1901 et seq.) requires that humane methods be used for handling and slaughtering livestock but does not include comparable provisions concerning the handling and slaughter of poultry.”]
The Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) was enacted for the purpose of preventing adulterated or misbranded poultry from being sold, and it is enforced by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).[1]
Pursuant to the law, the FSIS enacted a general rule that may offer some protection to poultry during the slaughter process. It requires that “poultry must be slaughtered in accordance with good commercial practices.”[2] The agency does not define good commercial practices other than stating, “In general, poultry should be handled in a manner that prevents needless injury and suffering in order to produce a commercially marketable product.”[3]
The only regulation set out by FSIS, however, is that poultry be slaughtered “in a manner that results in thorough bleeding of the carcasses and ensure that breathing has stopped prior to scalding.”[4]
Poultry Products Inspection Act 21 U.S.C.A §§ 451 – 473.
9 CFR § 381.65(b) Operations and procedures, generally
USDA, Food Safety & Inspection Serv. (2018) Verification of Poultry Good Commercial Practices, FSIS Directive 6110.1 (2018) p. 1.
9 CFR § 381.65(b)
This is debatable. Beyond the regulation that poultry be slaughtered to ensure thorough bleeding and that breathing has stopped prior to scalding,[1] the FSIS has issued directives to inspectors specifying some handling and slaughter practices that constitute noncompliance with the law. These include: employees breaking the legs of birds while shackling them, birds arriving frozen to their transport cages or dead from heat exhaustion, or entering the scalding tank still breathing.[2]
Enforcement mechanisms to prevent these extreme practices are limited. For one, the FSIS is careful to add that “these examples do not necessarily describe prohibited activities and noncompliance, but can still warrant documentation through an MOI [Memorandum of Interview].”[3] Further, the agency states, “From a regulatory perspective, adherence to GCP [good commercial practices] is a process control issue and not a bird-by-bird performance standard issue,” which means that writing up a slaughter plant for noncompliance can only be done if it is demonstrated that the establishment has lost overall “process control” and there is an ongoing pattern of mistreatment.[4]
A report by the Animal Welfare Institute documents that there are few consequences for non-compliance with PPIA regulations which are essentially voluntary. Despite the slaughter of more than 9 billion birds annually, an average of about 360 records of inhumane handling were issued by the USDA per year. “This amounts to barely more than one record a year for each of the 347 federally inspected US poultry slaughter plants.”[5] And of these records, inspectors took action to stop the abuse of birds in only 12% of such incidents.[6]
Most notably, unlike the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act for livestock, the PPIA does not require stunning the birds prior to slaughter, although most birds are stunned.[7]
9 CFR § 381.65(b)
USDA, Food Safety & Inspection Serv. (2018) Verification of Poultry Good Commercial Practices, FSIS Directive 6110.1 (2018) p. 1.
FSIS Directive 6110.1 (2018) p. 2.
FSIS Directive 6110.1 (2018) p. 3.
Dena Jones & Zack Strong (2023) The Welfare of Birds at Slaughter in the United States: The Need for Government Regulation, Animal Welfare Institute, p. 7 [Note: This report presents a comprehensive review of federal regulation (or the lack thereof) concerning poultry slaughter, a review of recent enforcements, a history of attempts to get the USDA to enact meaningful protections, and a listing of some of the recorded violations by the USDA and also by animal advocacy organizations.]
Dena Jones & Zack Strong (2023), p. 1. [For incidents of poultry mistreatment (many of which are egregious) at slaughter compiled from several advocacy organizations, see Appendix, Table 1]
USDA, FSIS Directive 6110.1 (2018) p. 3. [“Stunning is not a requirement in poultry slaughter, but if stunning system malfunction contributes to other process control concerns then this should be noted by IPP.”]