The escape of a bull from a Queens slaughterhouse this week is throwing a spotlight on a little-known industry in the city. As NY1's Clodagh McGowan reports, there are dozens of small slaughterhouses and live poultry markets, many of them in Queens, where they cater to sizable communities if Muslims and immigrants:

Inside a market on a quiet industrial block in Woodside, live animals are being killed and sold for meat.

Sometimes, clucking chickens inside the Bismallah Halah Live Poultry Market can be heard from the street.

Owner Salam Bhuiyan has been in business 15 years. He told NY1 that the birds are shipped from Pennsylvania and killed one at a time, whenever a customer comes here to place an order.

"That's a big, big difference. That's a huge difference, our chicken is here, it's fresh killed," said Bhuiyan.

Bhuiyan’s market is part of a surprising industry in the city, slaughterhouses and small poultry markets where animals are killed for meat.

A bull’s escape Tuesday from a Queens slaughterhouse and a 2-mile police chase to corral it briefly put this little-known industry in the spotlight.

The US Department of Agriculture lists 21 sites that slaughter livestock including cattle, sheep, pigs and goats in the city. Many of them are in Queens.

There are many more live poultry markets, like Bismallah, where just chickens and ducks are killed.

"Queens is a diverse; a lot of people live different countries. We used to have fresh chicken every day killed every day and this kind of thing, they want to have their culture," said Bhuiyan.

Bhuiyan said the majority of his business is selling halal meat, the animals killed according to Islamic law.

"Animals is all halal. But the way to slaughter it is by the name of Allah, you can say in God," said Imam Ehtashamul Huqe, who travels from Flushing to shop at Bismallah.

Bhuiyan said about 25 percent of his customers are not Muslim but immigrants from South America. Arturo Orellana is one of them. He said there is no comparison between fresh-killed chickens and the poultry sold in conventional supermarkets.

"The taste of the chicken is completely different," said Orellana, who lives in Woodside.

But not all of Bhuiyan's business caters to immigrant traditions or religious needs. Every year he sells freshly killed turkeys to American-born customers and newcomers celebrating Thanksgiving.