Meat Science 86 (2010) 56–65 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Meat Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/meatsci Review Auditing animal welfare at slaughter plants Temple Grandin Department of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO 80523, USA article info abstract Article history: The OIE Welfare Standards on slaughter transport, and killing of animals for disease control are basic minimum Received 9 January 2010 standards that every country should follow. The OIE, European Union, and many private standards used by Received in revised form 8 April 2010 commercial industry have an emphasis on animal based outcome standards instead of engineering based Accepted 15 April 2010 standards. Numerical scoring is used by both private industry and some governments to access animal welfare at slaughter plants. Five variables are measured. They are: 1) Percentage of animals effectively stunned on the first Keywords: attempt, 2) Percentage rendered insensible, 3) Percentage that vocalize (bellow, moo, squeal) during handling Slaughter welfare Cattle and stunning, 4) Percentage that fall during handling, and 5) Percentage moved with an electric goad. Each one of Pigs these critical control points measures the outcome of many problems. A good animal welfare auditing system also Stunning has standards that prohibit really bad practices such as dragging, dropping, throwing, puntilla, and hoisting live animals before ritual slaughter. On farm and transport problems that can be measured at the slaughter plant are: percentage of lame animals, percentage of thin animals, percentage of dirty animals, percentage with sores, bruises or lesions, death losses, morbidity, and percentage of birds with broken wings and legs. © 2010 The American Meat Science Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ...............................................................57 2. Different types of standards ........................................................57 2.1. Animal based outcome standards ..................................................57 2.2. Prohibited practices ........................................................57 2.3. Input based engineering standards also called resource based ....................................57 2.4. Documentation standards and paperwork ..............................................58 3. Vague wording in standards leads to inconsistent enforcement .......................................58 4. Numerical scoring system for slaughter plants ...............................................58 4.1. Percentage of livestock or poultry stunned effectively on the first attempt. ............................58 4.1.1. Captive bolt ........................................................58 4.1.2. Electrical stunning.....................................................58 4.1.3. Controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) ...........................................58 4.2. Percentage of livestock or poultry with no signs of return to sensibility ................................59 4.2.1. Evaluating insensibility in cattle, pigs, sheep, and other mammals . ............................59 4.2.3. Evaluating insensibility in chickens, turkeys, and other poultry................................59 4.3. Percentage of cattle, pigs, sheep, and other livestock that fall during handling . ............................59 4.4. Percentage of cattle, pigs, sheep, and other livestock that are moved with an electric goad .......................59 4.5. Percentage of cattle and pigs that vocalize (bellow or squeal) during handling before stunning .....................59 5. Slaughter without stunning (kosher and halal) ...............................................60 5.1. Restrain the animal in a comfortable, upright position ........................................60 5.2. Use a very sharp knife that is twice the width of the neck ......................................60 5.3. Score the interval from the cut to loss of sensibility .........................................60 5.4. Cattle, sheep, and goats must be unconscious before removal from the restrainer ...........................60 6.2. Expensive plant renovations not required in most slaughter plants ..................................60 7. Video auditing to maintain the improvements ...............................................60 8. Clear comments are essential .......................................................61 E-mail address: [email protected]. 0309-1740/$ – see front matter © 2010 The American Meat Science Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2010.04.022 T. Grandin / Meat Science 86 (2010) 56–65 57 9. On-farm and transport animal welfare problems that can be measured in the slaughter plant in cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry ........ 61 9.1. Body condition score (BCS) .................................................... 61 9.2. Lameness measure ........................................................ 61 9.3. Foot, leg, and body lesions caused by poor housing or disease .................................... 61 9.4. Broken wings and legs on chickens and turkeys ........................................... 61 9.5. Dead animals on arrival at the slaughter plant (DOAs)........................................ 61 9.6. Dirty soiled livestock and poultry.................................................. 62 9.7. Scoring of bruised carcasses .................................................... 62 10. Non-ambulatory downed animals ..................................................... 62 11. Conclusions ............................................................... 62 References ................................................................... 62 1. Introduction records the percentage of animals that fall down, the percentage lame, or the percentage where the stunner fails on the first attempt. Animal welfare is becoming an increasing concern around the One of the first animal based scoring systems for evaluating world (Seng & Laporte, 2005). Managers, veterinarians, and scientists stunning and handling of cattle and pigs at the slaughter plant was need to become more knowledgeable on how to assess and audit developed by Grandin (1997, 1998a). Systems using numerical animal welfare at the slaughter plant. The World Organization for scoring of animal handling are also described in Maria, Villarrael Animal Health (OIE) now has welfare standards for slaughter, and Gebresentbet (2004) and Edge and Barnett (2008). The European transport, and killing animals for disease control (OIE, 2009a,b,c; Union now has a major emphasis on the use of animal based methods Shimshony & Chaudry, 2005). Standards for on farm welfare of beef for evaluating animal welfare (European Union Welfare Quality, cattle and meat (broiler) chicken have preliminary drafts. The OIE 2009). In these programs, animals are evaluated for body condition, standards are basic minimum standards that both the developed and lameness, lesions, abnormal behavior, and many other measures. The developing countries have agreed on. In addition to OIE standards, OIE slaughter and transport guidelines also have animal based each country has its own animal welfare laws and standards (Defra, numerical scoring on the percentage of animals falling and electric 2010; USDA, 2010; MAF, 1996). A third type of standards are private goad use. In both OIE (2009a,b) and Grandin (2010a), handling standards that have been created by either large meat buying practices need improvement if more than 1% of the animals fall during customers, livestock producer groups, or scientific societies (Barnett handling. The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA has now & Hemsworth, 2009; Grandin, 2010a; FASS, 2010, National Pork adopted the use of the numerical scoring system that was developed Board (2008), Soil Association (no date). Some of these are stricter by Grandin (1997, 1998a)(FSIS/USDA, 2009). The use of animal based than either legislated standards or OIE standards. Legislative scoring systems has resulted in great improvements in handling and standards and private standards should avoid being in direct conflict stunning when it was used by restaurant companies to audit slaughter with OIE by allowing practices that should not be used according to plants (Grandin, 2005, 2006). This system has been in use for over ten OIE standards. years by large meat buying customers in many different countries (Grandin, 2010b). 2. Different types of standards Each animal is scored as either acceptable or not acceptable. For example, the percentage of animals where stunning failed on the first 2.1. Animal based outcome standards attempt or the percentage of cattle or pigs falling during handling is tabulated. Draft documents for the OIE on the welfare of beef cattle Animal based standards measure conditions that are outcomes of and broiler chickens also have a heavy emphasis on animal based either poor management practices, neglect, abuse of animals, or poorly outcome measures. designed equipment. The use of animal based standards is recom- mended by many researchers (Main, 2009; Hewson, 2003; Wray, 2.2. Prohibited practices Main, Green & Webster, 2003; Wray, Leeb, Main, Green & Webster, 2007, and Webster, 2005). Some examples of welfare problems that To insure a minimum level of basic animal welfare some really bad can be measured with outcome standards are the percentage of practices such as beating or dragging animals are prohibited in both animals that