@davidc4430 wrote:
From what I've seen of the video, they stun the animal with the hammer blow, then slaughter it
well from what those who have seen the unedited version of the video, the animal wasnt knocked out with the first blow, it took five or six blows to fell the animal. must have been a very frightning way to die.
where do we draw the line when being caring?
Stop eating meat, or stop live export and slaughter the animals here in Australia, where we consider to humanely kill the animals we like to eat.
this i agree with, stop the live transport, slaughter animals here in australia where we at least try to reduce the animals suffering.
there will never be a perfect way to kill an animal, but clubbing them to death just isnt acceptabe in 2016.
i would be very interested in how its done here in australia. it should be made public.
First a couple of declarations. I have grown up on farms and run around 1000 sheep at the moment. Like most others on this forum I don't support the live export of our animals.
As part of a two year post graduate study in agriculture I have been on a tour of a live export ship as it was loading stock in port and seen the full system. I have also been for a tour of a large domestic and export abattoir and seen the full operation from stock unloading to crio vaced meat packs.
The following is meant to be a factual run down on what I saw without taking any sides and a response to Davids query on how things are done in Australia.
Live Ship first. - The sheep ( in this case, but cows are the same ) where first taken to land based feedlots where they where introduced to the high quality feed they would be provided with on ship. They spent a couple of weeks in the feedlot to allow their stomach bug system to adapt to the feed and prevent tummy upsets on board. The feed was the best money could buy. This also trains them for close human contact and gets them used to living in smaller pens. The sheep really adjust to this very well as they are flock animals anyway, have feed, water and shade on hand and dont have to walk far to find it.
They where unloaded into holding pens and then loaded up ramps with covered sides. This was done professionally and quietly without a lot of noise or fuss. They use specially trained animals to run up the ramp first. Once the first animal runs up, the rest follow. Easy Peasy. They are then penned.
The pens have an open side to the sea, equipped with movable shutters. Empty pens are hosed clean at sea with large hoses pumping sea water . The animal waste and dropped food just goes over the side where constant schools of large fish which follow the ship are waiting. The water around the ship was full of fish. The pens where relativity clean and dry although the air was quite thick with amonia from all of the animals breathing and exfoliating. It was a warm still day in port and we where told this clears up at sea, as the sea breezes flow through the ship and clear the air. Sounded reasonable. The sheep where not packed tightly and had plenty of room to move around the large pens at will.
To be honest, I was pretty impressed with the whole operation and couldn't see any animal welfare concerns here. My only concern was the air quality ( refer previous comments )
The problems start on the rare occasions when ships are either delayed at sea or the animals are rejected, usually for political reasons and you have a ship with 80,000 - 100,000 sheep floating around looking for a home. Its an unnecessarily risk that Australian slaughter would prevent. My second concern is the same as others have noted. We lose control of the animal welfare issues when we export to countries with different value systems and religions to ours and the results can be seen in the videos seen on TV. This is unacceptable. My third concern is that we are exporting jobs and down stream processing opportunities by exporting live animals. We need all the jobs and food processing businesses we can get here in Australia.
ABATTOIR'S - Again a constant stream of large trucks unloaded stock into holding yards. Again trained animals ( judas animals they are called ) where used to lead the cattle ( this time ) up ramps with blind sides. They where moved to a single pen with blind covered sides where the slaughterman used a machine to end their lives. The machine was a large suspended handgun type of thing that delivered a large impact through a type of sharp metal bolt direct to the animals brain.
Yes it was confronting, but it was quick, clean and literally over in seconds. At no point could the cows see other animals that had been slaughtered. One of the blind sides then automatically dropped down and the processing of the carcase began. This was done on an raised moving chain, with workers each managing a single part of the process. Everything was sterile with tiled floors and stainless fittings. Large in ground shoots sent the hides, offal etc to a lower floor where other workers processed them and as the carcass was portioned it was moved to long stainless tables where workers stood all day and did their individual bit of the process.
All waste was put through a giant stainless mincer and then conveyed to a dryer / cooker to become blood and bone.
I would have to say the whole process was confronting, but the animals where treated and dispatched humanely. It is in the industries interest ( in a big way ) to reduce stress in the slaughter process to a minimum as stressed animals release hormones which cause the meat to darken and toughen, giving shorter shelf life and a poor eating experience for customers. This costs $$$$$ and we all know that this is a language big business understands more than any other. I THINK THIS IS A KEY POINT TO UNDERSTAND Stress in processing costs the industry big $$$$$ through tainted meat, so they have a major economic as well as social incentive to reduce it to a minimum throughout the chain.
I believe the industry is acutely aware that it is under the communities watch and is constantly making genuine efforts to make a sensative process as smooth and humane as possible.
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