The purpose of their being dragged face down through cold, salted, splashing electrified water, prior to partial throat-cutting, is mainly twofold: To fit them to the slaughter machinery and to loosen their feathers after they are dead. It is not about "stunning" them.
Photo by L. Parascandola, Tyson Chicken Slaughter Plant in
Richmond, Virginia
Benjamin Franklin described his own experience while trying to electrocute a turkey in 1750.
It is distressing how animal advocates and others reflexively recycle the falsehood that birds are meant to be “stunned” by the pre-slaughter electrified trough water through which they are dragged, face down, hanging by their heels on the disassembly line in the slaughter plants. Never was a term more misused and unjust, along with “euthanasia” (a merciful death) to characterize mass-murdering animals by torturous means.
Photo by Carol McCormick, Townsend's Chicken Slaughter Plant in
Millsboro, Delaware
It is not possible to "properly stun" a chicken, a turkey or other
birds in the slaughterhouses. The electrified water is not intended
to stun them in the first place, meaning it is not designed to
render them unconscious or pain-free. Nor is it meant to kill them.
The purpose of their being dragged face down through cold, salted,
splashing electrified water, prior to partial throat-cutting, is
mainly twofold: To fit them to the slaughter machinery and to loosen
their feathers after they are dead.
High levels of electrical current that could induce outright death
are avoided because they would interfere with “plant efficiency” and
cause hemorrhage – a “bloody bird,” in the words of a researcher.
Let us please not misrepresent the agony endured by the electrically
paralyzed conscious birds or mistakenly urge that they be "stunned"
by a process that tortures them. We have a responsibility to render
their experience as accurately as possible, whereas the language of
“proper electrical stun,” referring to strictly commercial goals,
totally disguises their suffering, as documented here: Poultry
Slaughter.
....
Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (PDF).