Pre slaughter Operations of meat
animals and poultry birds

Pre-slaughter Handling
 Animal handling
 Animal Transportation
 Animal Resting
 Fasting
 Antemortem inspection
 Antemortem - Ante-mortem injuries occur before
death whereas post-mortem injuries occur after
death.
 Ante-mortem refers to events occurring prior
to death.

Pre-slaughtering Care
 Pre-slaughter care and handling can markedly influence the
quality and quantity of meat.
 Fatigued and excited animals are to be rested before slaughter.
 Inadequate rest period may reduce the keeping quality of flesh.
 Excited, stressed, fatigued, suffocated, bruised and injured
animals are not expected to yield whole some meat.
 Excessive holding in lairages may increase the numbers of
certain organisms in animals.

Transportation of meat animals
 Before loading and unloading livestock, check that the
facility will not cause animal injury.
 If the facility is likely to cause injury, the damage should
be repaired immediately or the animals unloaded
elsewhere.
 Remove any disturbances from loading and unloading
facilities that may cause the animal to stop, crash or
return.
 Check for livestock trucks for any signs of damage and
wear that can hurt animals and report damage to truck
drivers or supervisors.
 Give instructions that any repair on the damaged truck
must be completed before it is used again to transport
the cattle.
 All livestock should be loaded / unloaded by a caretaker,
port worker or an experienced livestock truck drive

Transportation of meat animals
 Sufficient cages and livestock should be available
before starting the demolition.
 Check that the ramp / road slope does not exceed
about 30 degrees.
 Check that the road surface / ramp, or tailgate when
it becomes part of the road, is not slippery.
 Lighting should be provided for loading and
unloading at night.
 Make sure that there is enough lighting to
encourage animals to move in or out of the truck,
but make sure that light is not directly directed to
their eyes (eg light beams or sunlight).

Slippery floor of truck should be
covered with floor mats
Cargo density for livestock to keep
standing while in a truck

Load Farm Animals onto Trucks
 Check that the number of animals that must be
transported on a vehicle or in a container, and their
allocation to the compartment, has been determined
before loading begins.
 Before loading, make sure that the truck is parallel to
the ramp / ramp with no gaps ..
 Loading should only be done by experienced and
skilled personnel.
 Move the animals in small groups that are easily
handled from the demolition cage / ramp to the truck.

Load Farm Animals onto Trucks
 Allow animals to move on trucks at their own pace,
especially if the truck floor is not made of anti-skid material.
 Handling of animals' which includes more detailed handling
procedures.
 Do not stand in front of the animals or in front of their view
directly as this can stop them from moving to the truck.
 Standing on one side will encourage the movement of
animals.
 Observe each animal when walking against signs of
lameness and injury.
 Check that all animals are healthy to transport. Livestock
sick and injured should not be loaded.
 For easier handling, try to place a group of animals from a
ship or feedlot together during loading and on a truck.

Resting in lairage
 Rest before slaughter is essential to produce meat with
good keeping quality.
 In relation to weight loss suffered during transit, it is
possible to restore this loss with adequate rest in many
cases, if not in all cases.
 A period of 12-24 hours with a maximum of 36 hours
detention and rest in lairage is essential for such animals
before slaughter.
 Factors that determine the duration of rest include:
 -Species of animal
 -Age, sex, class and condition of animal
 -Time of the year
 -Length of journey
 -Method of transportation.

Watering
 Animals should receive ample drinking water during
their detention in the lairage.
1. Which lower the bacterial load in the intestine.
2. Facilitate easy removal of the hide or pelt during
dressing.
3. Prevents shrinkage losses in body
4. Improve the efficiency of stunning by electrical
means

Feeding
 Muscle glycogen is a desirable component of meat.
Its presence ensures an adequate amount of lactic
acid after slaughter and low pH.
 Such meat possesses good appearance, taste,
tenderness and keeping quality.
 Pre-slaughter feeding of easily digestible
carbohydrates (Molasses) to pigs showed restoration
of muscle glycogen and a subsequent low muscle
pH.
 Moreover feeding 1.3 Kg of sugar for three or
more days before slaughter of cattle and pigs
has increased daily weight gain, dressing
percentage and liver weight.

Fasting
 It is a duty of inspector to ensure that they are not
presenting the animals for slaughter with full
stomachs because
1. Full stomach causes extensive contamination of
carcass and offal's if accidentally cuts.
2. Wet hide and fleeces encourage the transfer of
fecal materials particularly to area such as the
shank, brisket and hocks.

Preparing livestock for slaughter
 At the time of slaughter, animals should be healthy
and physiologically normal.
 Slaughter animals should be adequately rested.
 They should be rested, preferably overnight,
particularly if they have travelled for some times over
long distances.
 However, pigs and poultry are usually slaughtered
on arrival as time and distances travelled are
relatively short and holding in pens is stressful for
them.
 Animals should be watered during holding and can
be fed, if required.
 Holding period allows for injured and victimized
animals to be identified and for sick animals to be
quarantined.

 When ready for slaughter, animals should be driven
to the stunning area in a quiet and orderly manner
without undue fuss and noise.
 Droving can be facilitated using flat canvass straps,
rolled plastic or paper, and in the case of stubborn
animals, prodders can be used occasionally.
 Animals should never be beaten nor have their tails
twisted.
 Animals should be led in single file into the stunning
area where they can be held in appropriate
restraining device(s) before stunning.

Restraint devices
 It is a process to inactivate animals so that it is not
able to move
 Slaughter animals should be properly restrained
before stunning or bleeding.

Cattle
 A stunning box is the most common method of restraining cattle.
 Size of the box should be just wide enough to prevent the animal from
turning around, and so be difficult to stun.
 Floor of the box should be non-slip.
 A simple neck crush used by farmers to restrain cattle for weighing is
suitable for small-scale operations.
 Restraining tame cattle outside the stunning box by securing the head in
a halter and then pulling the rope through a metal ring in a concrete
floor is effective.
 It is recommended that the operator should be positioned behind
protective steel bars.

Stunning box for
Sheep/goats
Stunning box for pigs
• Allow the pig to stand for
prolonged time.
• People should be trained and
licensed for stunning the
animals.

Poultry
 Chickens are shackled by their legs onto a conveyor
line.
 This must be done gently to avoid injury and stress.
 In a small slaughterhouse, birds can be placed headfirst
in cones.
Stunning methods
 It is desirable to render an animal unconscious before it
is slaughtered in order to eliminate pain, discomfort and
stress from the procedure.
 Authorised ritual slaughter like Kosher or Halal.
 Whatever the stunning method, the animal should be
rendered unconscious for long enough so that bleeding
results in enough loss of blood to cause death from lack
of oxygen to the brain (cerebral anoxia).
 In other words, death should occur before the animal
would have regained consciousness after stunning, had

Stunning methods
There are three types of stunning methods
 Percussion
 Electrical
 Gas (Carbon dioxide)

Percussion stunning method
 This method produces a physical shock to the brain .
Captive bolt
 Works on the principle of a gun and fires a blank
cartridge and it propels a short bolt (metal rod) from
the barrel.
 Bolt penetrates the skull bone and produces
concussion by damaging the brain or increasing
intracranial pressure, causing bruising of the brain.
 Captive bolt is perhaps the most versatile stunning
instrument as it is suitable for use on cattle, pigs,
sheep and goats as well as horses and camels, and
can be used anywhere in the world.
 (Although electrical stunning is preferable to captive
bolt pistols for stunning pigs and sheep

Correct positioning of stunning
gun for different species (horse,
cattle, goat, sheep and pig)
Use of Captive Bolt Pistol (CBP)
Hand-held barrel captive bolt gun

Gunshot
 Animals are too fractious to be handled in the normal
way, such as when they cannot be loaded on the
farm.
 A 22-calibre bullet is sufficient for most animals.
 Shooting with a free bullet can be dangerous to
operators.
 If the animal is to be slaughtered on a farm, it
should be accurately shot while standing or lying on
soft ground to prevent the bullet from ricocheting

Electrical stunning
 Electrical stunning induces electroplectic shock or
epileptic state in the brain.
 This state should last for long enough for bleeding to be
carried out so that the animal dies from cerebral anoxia.
 A low voltage alternating electric current is applied by
means of two electrodes, which are placed on either side of
the brain using tongs.
 Since the brain of animals is small, the electrodes should
be accurately and firmly placed high up on the sides of the
head in sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and ostriches

Tongs for electrical stunning of ostriches
Tongs for electrical stunning of pigs
Manually operated electrical
stunning box for small-scale
poultry slaughter
Water bath for automatic electrical
stunning of poultry

Species M/Amps Amps Volts Time (sec.)
Pig (bacon/porker) min. 125 min.
1.25
max. 125 max. 10 (until
EPS*)
Sheep/goat 100-125 1.0-1.25 75-125 max. 10 (until
EPS*)
Poultry3 1.5-2 kg
broiler
200 2.0 50-70 5
Turkey 200 2.0 90 10
Ostrich 150-200 1.5-2.0 90 10-15
* EPS is electroplectic shock.
Recommended current and time characteristics for
electrical stunning

Carbon dioxide gas stunning
 Use of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is a relatively new
method of stunning suitable for pigs and poultry.
 However, it is applicable only at large industrial plants,
as the sophisticated technical equipment is relatively
costly to install.
 Basically, animals are stunned using various
concentrations of CO2 in air.
 Concentrations of CO2 for the stunning of pigs are
at least 80% in air for 45 seconds and poultry of 65%
for 15 seconds.
 For some genetic types of pigs, it may be satisfactory,
and for others may be stressful.
 Currently Argon gas is being tested for stunning
purposes.
 It is assumed that Argon gas may have some
advantages over CO2, but the costs may be higher.

Malpractice

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