A look inside a poultry farm and plant

Perdue gave News21 a tour of its Georgetown, Del., plant and a farm with which it has a contract. The plant tests chickens for salmonella often to prevent foodborne illness.

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Chickens crowd around the feed and water lines at Mike Weaver's poultry farm in Fort Seybert, W.Va. This huddling also keeps the vulnerable chicks warm.

Judah Ari Gross /

A chick breaks out of its crate, ready to make a run for it, but a worker finds it and places it back with the others. The temperature in the chicken house must be kept above 90 degrees or the chicks probably would not survive.

Judah Ari Gross

Chickens travel to a machine that will remove their legs. Drumsticks and thighs will be sent through a separate processing line.

Jeffrey Benzing

A worker at the Perdue plant sharpens her knife. She will remove the thigh meat from the drumstick.

Jeffrey Benzing

A worker sorts through the chicken parts coming off the butchering line, separating them for packaging.

Jeffrey Benzing

Workers fill plastic trays with drumsticks. The trays will be sealed, chilled and shipped to bulk distributors. On its Web site, the USDA lists the names and locations of slaughter plants where salmonella has been detected in more than 10 percent of the poultry tested by the agency. As of August, no Perdue plants were on the list.

Jeffrey Benzing

A Perdue worker trims any remaining fat or imperfections from a chicken breast. The Georgetown, Del., plant is one of the last to use regular ice to keep its meat cool. Most now use dry ice.

Jeffrey Benzing

Drumsticks travel on overhead conveyors to packaging. Workers will wrap them in plastic, cool them and ship them to stores.

Jeffrey Benzing

After the legs and wings have been removed, the carcasses travel via conveyor belt to other workers, who will remove the breasts, tenders and every other edible part. The conveyor belts are made of a special material that resists contamination.

Jeffrey Benzing

Jed Marchio, quality assurance manager at the Georgetown, Del., plant, looks over a tray of chicken thigh filets before they are packaged and sealed.

Jeffrey Benzing

Chicken thigh filets emerge from a packing machine. The packages will be gathered, loaded onto crates and put into a chilled room.

Jeffrey Benzing

A worker stacks crates of chicken packages onto wooden pallets. The pallets will chill in this room, where the temperature is below freezing, for a few hours before being sent to a distribution center to await shipment.

Jeffrey Benzing

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