Turkeys have a zest for living and, treated with respect, become very friendly.

Wild turkeys are striking, handsome, graceful and intelligent. They spend their lives foraging and roosting in trees. An adult bird can fly at up to 50mph and can live up to ten years.

Turkeys reared for meat are killed between eight and 26 weeks. These birds can barely walk, let alone fly.

Viva! has filmed inside nine turkey units throughout the country, including those of two suppliers to supermarkets.

The undercover footage shows injured, diseased, dying and dead birds.

It shows the overcrowded and noisy conditions turkeys are forced to live in.

Mutilated beaks can be seen on nearly every bird. Many are covered in blood and cannot walk.

Some are in such a state of decay they have clearly been left for weeks amid living birds.

Throughout their lives, turkeys may be given antibiotics and other drugs to prevent disease. Nevertheless, diseases are rife on turkey farms.

Turkeys suffer from salmonella, blackhead disease and avian influenza.

Farmed birds are reared to be pathologically obese. They have enlarged, congested livers and their hearts can actually explode.

If turkeys are not killed on the farm by neck dislocation or decapitation, they are crammed into crates and transported to the slaughterhouse.

There, they are hung upside down in shackles, dipped in an electronically charged water bath and moved round to the neck cutter.

This process can take more than six minutes, during which time the turkey is terrified and still alive.

-Kat Macmillan, Viva!, Queen Square, Brighton