Hey friends, most of you know why it’s not cool to have a  turkey on Thanksgiving, but in case you don’t, or you want to have some info to pass along to friends, here’s the lowdown, from Farm Sanctuary co-founder Gene Baur!

The Truth Behind Thanksgiving
By Gene Baur

Hi Kind Lifers! As you know, millions of turkeys experience brutal conditions during Thanksgiving and year-round – but more and more citizens are getting inspired to embrace a kinder tradition.
 
For more than two decades, Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt-A-Turkey Project has raised awareness about the plight of turkeys on factory farms, and provided individuals who care about farm animals with opportunities to make a difference. And this year, with Ellen DeGeneres as our 2010 spokesperson, we expect to reach more people than ever before!
 
Here are the different ways Kind Lifers can participate in the Adopt-A-Turkey Project:

• Sponsor a turkey – through our turkey sponsorship program anyone can “adopt” one of our rescued Farm Sanctuary residents. For a one-time donation that goes towards the daily care of turkeys who live at our shelters and other efforts to protect farm animals, sponsors receive an adoption certificate that they can put on display, reminding everyone who sees it that behind every turkey dinner was once a living, breathing individual with desires, feelings and a life of his or her own.
• Adopt a turkey - through our Turkey Express event, Farm Sanctuary physically adopts out rescued turkeys to loving, permanent homes. Like cats and dogs, turkeys are social, sensitive animals who deserve to be treated as part of a family and given a comfortable home to call their own. Through the years, we have helped hundreds of turkeys from factory farms meet this far happier end.
• Share your knowledge - the Adopt-A-Turkey Project also offers educational resources, as well as tips and ideas on how to open hearts and minds, for anyone who wants to join us in promoting compassion around the holiday. This year, we’ve created a new video, Thanksgiving’s Toll on Turkeys (see below), that incorporates all the investigations we’ve done at turkey production facilities throughout the years and offers solutions to end these cruel practices.
• Petition the President - we are also petitioning President Obama for the third year running to adopt a new tradition by sending the turkeys he pardons this year to Farm Sanctuary, where they can receive the best care possible.
• Attend our Celebration for the Turkeys - we are hosting hundreds of people at our Orland, California and Watkins Glen, New York Shelters for our Celebrations For the Turkeys, where we serve vegan holiday meals not only to our human guests, but to our turkey residents as well!

The sad truth is that commercially-raised turkeys are packed by the thousands in factory farms, where each is allotted just three square feet of space. The crowded, stressed birds are unable to engage in natural behaviors and resort to pecking and fighting. To minimize resulting harm, the industry painfully removes portions of the birds’ beaks and toes, leaving them disfigured for life.
 
The deplorable conditions these birds are raised in, paired with their unnatural genetic makeup, lead to illness and injury, and many birds on factory farms are left to languish without care and die. Those who do survive are shipped to slaughterhouses where, exempt from animal protection laws, they meet an equally brutal end. For turkeys, this is the sad reality behind Thanksgiving.

The good news is that we are working to end this cruelty. Every year, the efforts of compassionate people encourage millions of people to rethink the role turkeys play in the Thanksgiving holiday. The more our fellow citizens become educated about the cruelty that goes on behind the closed doors of our nation’s factory farms, the less sense it makes that we feast on these maligned birds as symbols of gratitude, and the more natural it becomes to spare a life in the spirit of thankfulness that shines during this time of year.

Thanks Gene! As Gene said, the great news is that you can sponsor or adopt a turkey, and of course, you can eat delicious, yummy food with zero sacrifice. Who cares about dry turkey meat anyway? It’s all the other stuff that is sooo yummy. Even if you do love turkey meat, do you really love it so much that it is worth all of the suffering? Check out my previous posts about this here and here for more info, and have a yummy Thanksgiving!