Tova is Cornish Game Hen spared from an annual slaughter ritual called Kaporos (atonement). Although the majority of Jewish people do not practice Kaporos or no longer slaughter chickens, there are still over 60,000 chickens slaughtered on the sidewalks of New York City every year for this annual ritual that takes place in New York.
Prior to the day of Kaporos, the hens are kept in crates for as long as a week. Thousands die from dehydration, hyper or hypothermia, and also drowning prior to Kaporos. Those who survive up to the day of the ritual are carried by grasping the legs or by pinning the wings backwards and they are swing over the heads of the people holding them. The chickens are then slaughtered in the streets. The practice was once intended to feed the poor, but since they are usually in horrendous health, they are typically thrown into the trash. Some actually survive the ritual and are still alive in plastic garbage bags where they slowly suffocate to death or die from blood loss.
The Cornish Cross breed has been hybridized so they grow extremely large very quickly and are “meant” to be killed at just 42 days, at only 6 weeks of age.
