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You're preparing to unwrap your presents and slump into a flatulent day of feasting, charade-playing and snoring in front of the telly.

But if you're a turkey, you're probably dead and are just about to be eaten, along with millions of your fellow birds.

Although the scale of the slaughter is dwarfed by the so-called 'hen-ocide', which sees billions of chickens wiped out every year, turkeys have a pretty hard time at the hands of humans.

Here's what life is like for the forgotten victims of Christmas past, present - and probably the future too, unless humanity strikes a new accord with this most mistreated of species.

How many turkeys are killed every year?

In Britain, it's estimated that about 20 million turkeys are annihilated on an annual basis.

But in America, the birds really don't have any reason to give thanks, because about 270 million are killed on an annual basis - with 72 million slaughtered for festive meals or Thanksgiving.

What's life like on a turkey farm?

(Image: BBC)

In the US, a PETA investigation found turkeys were beaten, force fed and killed en masse by men armed with planks of wood.

"One said he saw a coworker fatally inject turkey semen and sulfuric acid into turkeys' heads," PETA researchers claimed.

Are British farms any better?

(Image: Reuters)

Not always, according to the RSPCA, which found that birds are crammed into tiny spaces in "barren sheds" without "space or facilities to carry out all their normal behaviours properly".

The fowl enclosures are often covered in faeces and so hot that the birds suffer from an illness called heat stress.

How are turkeys killed?

(Image: SWNS)

All farmed turkeys meet a similarly bleak fate.

They are either gassed or have their throats cut after first being dunked in water which has an electric charge running through it.

Do turkeys have any hope?

Yes, because in Britain there are places like Hillside Animal Sanctuary which save birds from the intensive farming industry.

Vodafone's recent 'Terry the Turkey' advert also showed a family adopting a bird and then eating a nut roast at Xmas instead - a sight which could put some people off turkey for life.

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