Glad I didn't have turkey today. >Avoiding uncomfortable topics at Thanksgiving dinner this week just got a little more difficult. Allegations against Butterball—the most popular commercial producer of turkeys in a country that has an annual, nationwide turkey feast later this week—have come to light, implicating several employees in acts of animal cruelty. One of the cruel acts? Sexual assault of the turkeys, both living and already slaughtered for the grocery store. To quote What We Do in the Shadows, “You’d enjoy it a lot more if you didn’t know it’d been f_cked.” >So, here’s what happened in a nutshell. PETA did what PETA does: when they heard whisperings of inappropriate things happening at the Butterball factory, they went sniffing around. Apparently, they found quite a bit of shocking and inappropriate behavior, not the least of which was turkeys being hit and stomped on while they were still alive. There was also evidence of sexual assault happening between men who worked in the factory and the turkeys while the birds were restrained. Unfortunately, this is not the first time Butterball has faced legal trouble for mistreating animals at their facilities. In 2012, Butterball was hit with legal action after an undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals exposed cruelty against animals. >The timing of releasing this information to the public so soon before the national “let’s eat turkey” day—Thanksgiving—was possibly intentional. With so much national attention already on turkeys, it’s no surprise that this story was met with widespread outrage. Holiday-specific controversies have a way of stirring up a media storm, and those storms are frequently linked to activists who have been carefully stoking the flames of controversy behind the scenes to draw attention to their cause. . . [Source](https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/butterball-employees-implicated-in-allegations-of-inappropriate-sexual-acts-with-turkeys-43727401)