Few people know that Army veterinarians perform ‘sanitation audits’ of food production establishments both in the US and overseas.  A sanitation audit is a very professional way of saying that you look into every nook and cranny of food production. It includes walking through the facility, observing the food-making processes, and reviewing paperwork all while taking notes and asking questions to later write a report.  When assigned overseas, Army vets have the additional duty of inspecting slaughterhouses.  Here in the US, the USDA inspects the slaughterhouses (thank you, USDA!).  Inspecting slaughterhouses has been among the worst part of being a Vet. It’s even worse than emptying anal glands.  The slaughterhouse inspections begin with the animals coming off the delivery truck and end with the packaged goods that my grandmother referred to simply as ‘dead chickens’.  [I’ve mentioned earlier that my family was practical when it came to animals.  They were.  Right down to the honest language.]  Vet school helped me prepare for slaughterhouses by providing the knowledge to identify sick animals, to recognize abnormalities in their bodies, to think critically, and to understand what is and is not humane.  All of these were useful tools for intellectually navigating the world of the slaughterhouse. Finding humor wherever possible helped me survive the experience emotionally.

My first slaughterhouse audit as a new Army veterinarian was to a chicken processing plant in the Netherlands. My work began with observing the animals moving from the delivery truck onto a conveyor belt.  The process reminded me a lot of that carnival game where the plastic ducks float in a fake pond and the water circulates to keep them moving swiftly along.  The belt was crowded and the chickens kept coming nonstop, moving by me just like those ducks in that game.  Similar to when I was a kid, I wanted to reach down and pluck one out.  Every so often one of the chickens would end up on the floor of the receiving room.  Like picking the winning duck from the pond, it was sheer luck rather than skill that the chicken was free from its fast-approaching fate.  Though the outside world was just feet from the conveyor built, the chicken had no chance at freedom.  There were humans specially positioned to ensure chickens left the facility under only one condition—packaged.  Even still, I couldn’t help silently cheering to the confused birds who found themselves on the ground, “Run, Chicken, Run!” I wished for an alternate ending for those who’d made it off the conveyor belt.

The slaughterhouse representative accompanying me was tall, polite, well-informed and kept us moving through the facility, following the path of the chickens.  Though she was Dutch, she spoke perfect English.  We both wore white coveralls made of special water-resistant materials.  The coveralls are standard uniform for those visiting icky places to keep your normal clothes clean underneath.  The material is slick Tyvek with built-in shoe covers, a hoodie, and the whole thing is so over-sized that the extra material poofs out around your waistline.  Most people refer to this coverall outfit as a bunny suit.  Definitely not a bunny of the Playboy variety, but more along the lines of a really bad shopping mall Easter bunny.  Facilities typically only provide one size (XL) bunny suit.  For a really short person like me, the suit also sags down between the knees making walking especially challenging and noisy as the fabric rubs together.  Wearing this oversized bunny suit annoyed me at cheese factories and bakeries. I was grateful for this protective layer when we stopped at a particularly memorable station of the slaughterhouse–the ‘de-feathering’ machine.

The ‘de-feathering’ machine is pretty much a car wash that removes feathers from chickens rather than dirt from cars.  The similarities are striking–the chickens were scalded with hot water to loosen things up then brushes spin around them at high speed to remove the feathers.  [The chickens are already deceased when this happens and I’ve purposely left out those details.  In my opinion, the slaughterhouses brought about as humane an ending as possible for the animals though improvements can be made in the treatment of the animals beforehand.]  How all these parts removed feathers and that it actually worked really surprised me.  I wanted to know more so I stopped the representative to ask a few questions. I expected her to move us elsewhere to talk. Nope–she stopped right there at the de-feathering machine.  Big mistake in timing.  The steam from the hot water easily reached us and created a sauna inside my bunny suit while the fast-moving brushes tossed insane amounts of feathers and fluff everywhere.  I quickly put up the bunny suit hood and held it tight around my face with one hand while trying to protect my clipboard and papers by tucking them up under my arm with the other hand.  It was useless.  The now-wet bunny suit made for the perfect surface for all the feathers and fluff to stick to it.  While I tried to fight off the feathers and keep them from my face, the assistant made no such moves.  With feathers and fluff dangling from every square inch of her, to include her face, I was now being led around the slaughterhouse by an oversized chicken.  I had absolutely no idea what the answer to my question was as I’d lost all focus.  I couldn’t believe that this young woman was covered in feathers, standing in a fog of steam from the ‘de-feathering’ machine, talking to me as if this were just an everyday chat over coffee.  What kind of bizarre world had I entered and how could I hop the express train out? Could someone please transport me back to the cheese plants and bread factories?  Those places were pleasantly warm, smelled delicious, and the only thing entering my mouth was tasty samples–not feathers!  I barely held onto my professionalism and finished the rest of the inspection.

That evening when I returned to the hotel I called my husband and told him about this strange first experience.  We both knew this would not be my last inspection of a slaughterhouse.  My Army unit covered all of Northern Europe.  There were a lot of chicken and turkey slaughterhouses that I’d be expected to visit over the next few years and even some that processed pigs.  My colleague who shared food audit duties was already a vegetarian. There was no way she’d be signing up to inspect slaughterhouses.  If someone had to pick feathers out of her nose, smell like a chicken, and witness the truck to package process that someone should be me–the one who would actually eat the ‘dead chicken’.  At the end of many days on the road inspecting different food establishments, I returned home to my husband and our labradors in Germany.  We sat down on the couch for our usual friday night of watching a movie and eating pizza and ice cream.  To celebrate my first trip doing inspections on my own and to commemorate surviving the slaughterhouse, my husband bought me a gift.  He handed me the wrapped present with a big grin on his face. I opened it to find the DVD of the movie released right about the same time I’d graduated vet school earlier that year, “Chicken Run”!