Spare A Thought For Turkeys This Christmas

Published on 22/12/2012 06:47

Mulled wine, mince pies and festive feasts! This is the season for indulging - a time for treating ourselves and others.

But I ask your readers to also spare a thought for the lives of all those animals - especially the millions of turkeys - farmed for our Christmas dinners every year.

I’m sure most of you will be shocked to know that the vast majority of turkeys in our supermarkets still come from farms where they are kept in very barren environments and don’t have enough space to move around and exercise properly.

Turkeys are intelligent animals and they need things to do, such as objects to peck at and perch on and space to stretch their wings.

The good news is we can all do our bit to help by only choosing turkeys with higher welfare labels such as Freedom Food.

However, currently only about five per cent of British farmed turkeys are from Freedom Food farms - where they are inspected to RSPCA standards - so we need supermarkets to help too by listening to consumer demand for higher welfare food and stocking more of them.

That way more of us can have a welfare-friendly and happy Christmas!

Alice Clark

RSPCA farm animal scientist

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Spare A Thought For Turkeys This Christmas

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