Virgil Butler - Bio

Being raised in Arkansas in Tyson country, it was quite natural for me to have gravitated to the poultry industry for work. By the time I was 14, I was working in the chicken houses, catching chickens every night from 6:00 p.m. until we finished catching, around 1:00 a.m. or so. Only the young guys could do this work because it was hard and required a lot of stamina.

There were nine guys in the catch crew and the crew boss, who drove the forklift. We would have to catch all the chickens from about 3 houses a night. Back then they didn't run as many chickens every night as they do now. Things were a little slower then. But, not for us catchers. You see, we got paid per bird, not per hour, so it was to our advantage to finish the night as soon as possible.

I enlisted in the delayed entry program for the Army in 1984, and when I graduated, I went off to Basic. I spent two years working my way to the top of the heap - Special Operations. I was part of a combat reconnaissance team and fought in Panama.

When I got back home after that there just wasn't really anywhere else to work around here but Tyson, so, I went to work down at the slaughter plant in Grannis. I quit and went back twice, but there just wasn't any other steady work, so I didn't see any other choice but to stay there. At least the work was steady and they had benefits.

It wasn't very long until I had shown myself to be good at back dock and killing, so I got stuck there. I had hoped that, given enough time and experience, I could eventually work my way up there and be able to make a difference in the way things were done. Nothing I did and no one I talked to had any effect on how bad the situation was down there. It was always a situation of. "If you don't like it, hit the road."

Finally, after a number of years, all the things I had seen and been a part of started to haunt me. It got harder and harder to keep going in to work every night and kill defenseless birds and watch them suffer. It got harder to be around all the negativity that hung over that place and the people who worked there.

Now, I am using all that knowledge to spread the word to others of how bad things really are in the industry. I am hoping that if I can help to educate people to the horror that is factory farming, they will rise up and demand change. I know that things can be different because I have been there. Most everything I saw through the years was unnecessary and could have been prevented. Some were just completely inexcusable. There is no defense for maliciously torturing an animal for entertainment.

I have found my back ground to be an asset in arguments with die-hard meat-eaters. They don't perceive me as some wild-eyed animal rights fanatic. They seem more willing to listen and the first-hand experiences seem to carry more weight than the oft-repeated slogans and phrases on most animal organizations websites. One of the most common arguments I have heard is that the pictures/videos are the same and it's not like that everywhere. When a slaughterhouse worker starts talking, it is a little more convincing to people that don't want to hear it, much less believe it.

I now dedicate a good bit of my time to activism and don't eat meat. We have our own chickens, some of which are rescues, so we get a few eggs from them. They all have names and get buried just like the dogs do. I am building a cabin in the woods on the Ouachita River bordering the National Forest. We are using trees that died after they fell over in an ice storm. We had them sawn up into lumber and are building it ourselves. 

We are living our dream and are happier than we have ever been in our lives.

Virgil Butler
The Cyberactivist
Yahoo Groups Activists Against Factory Farming