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Humane Handling |
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Intro:
Welcome to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service podcast. Each episode
will bring you cutting edge news and information about how FSIS is working to ensure public
health protection through food safety. While we’re on the job, you can rest assured that
your meat, poultry, and processed egg products are safe, wholesome, properly labeled,
and packaged correctly. So turn up your volume and listen in.
Host:
Hello and welcome to another informative FSIS
podcast. I’m your host Jeff White.
Joining us is Joan Collins, a program manager in the Office of Field Operations. In
this position, she assists senior program officials in providing guidance and
direction to FSIS District Offices throughout the country, ensuring that meat,
poultry, and egg products are produced in accordance with the statutes and the
Agency’s food safety regulations. Joan has been with FSIS for more than 20 years and
has a great deal of experience training front line supervisors on the statutes, Rules
of Practice and the administrative enforcement process.
Today, Joan will provide insight on humane handling of livestock, in compliance with
the Humane Slaughter Act. While FSIS is primarily concerned with preventing foodborne
illness, the Agency is also interested in animal safety – and there is a linkage
between the two.
Joan, thank you for being here. Can you share with us the critical control points of
humane handling?
Guest:
Jeff, the critical control points of humane
handling are: Effective stunning – Insensibility
– Vocalization – Electric prod use – and Slipping and falling.
Host:
Would you please tell us more about each of these points?
Guest:
Effective stunning means to make sure stunning equipment and procedures work so that
the animal is effectively stunned on the first attempt.
For the insensibility control point, be sure the animal is completely insensitive to
pain before beginning the slaughter process.
Listen for vocalization as a sign that animals are excited or in discomfort.
Minimize as much as possible the use of electric prods. Because they cause significant
stress, they should be used rarely, if at all.
Finally, to prevent animals from falling or being injured, make sure that the surfaces
that animals walk on are not slippery.
Host:
Joan, can you tell us about the four types of stunning?
Guest:
The first is chemical stunning using carbon dioxide. This method has been approved for
swine, sheep and calves.
Mechanical stunning is a gun-type mechanism that fires a bolt or shaft out of a
muzzle.
The third method is mechanical gunshot stunning. The caliber of the firearm must be
such that a single shot of a bullet into the animal produces immediate unconsciousness.
And finally, there’s stunning by electric current. This method is approved for hogs,
calves, sheep and goats – but is most widely used for hogs.
Host:
How can you tell if an animal has been properly stunned?
Guest:
Good question. This is where the animal
becomes insensible. The first point I would like to make is
that limb movements aren’t a good sign of insensibility. Most of those are reflexes.
You need to look at the head and the back. Cattle and pigs hanging on the rail should
have a straight back and a floppy head. The tongue will be hanging
out of the mouth straight and floppy as well.
Host:
You mentioned that plants should minimize electric prod use. What are other effective
ways to move animals?
Guest:
The electric prod should never be the primary tool used to move animals. It should
only be used when an animal balks. An animal’s balance and flight zone should be used
to guide the animals. Some examples of cheap and easy tools that you can safely use to
move animals are a flag or even a paper bag. Animals will see the movement and turn to
go in a different direction.
Host:
How do you prevent the floors from being slippery and the animals falling?
Guest:
It’s essential to have non-slip flooring. If the animal begins to slip and feels
that it may fall, it may panic and be difficult to stun. It may also become injured,
and can injure other animals or plant employees. To fix a slippery surface, you can
add grooves of at least 8 inches deep in the flooring, or lay down metal rods that
have been welded together in a checkered pattern.
Host:
I’ve heard that it’s recommended for plant operators to use a systematic approach to
humane handling. What does that mean?
Guest:
It means that it’s really not enough to apply the principles of humane handling on a day-to-day
basis. The operator should be collecting information about how well their humane handling practices are
working. If they see an area for improvement, operators should update their procedures.
Host:
What’s an example of something the operator might observe that would mean the plant’s
humane handling procedures need to be updated?
Guest:
The plant owner might notice that for some species of cattle that are large, for
example, the stunning device is not adequate to render the large cattle insensible.
The procedures could be modified by loading the stunning device with a larger caliber
of bolt when larger cattle are slaughtered.
Or, the plant owner might notice that the stunning device becomes less and less
effective over time if maintenance on the device is not done. So, the maintenance
procedures could be modified so that they are done more frequently.
Host:
Where can listeners go to find more information on humane handling?
Guest:
There’s a lot to learn about humane handling and the laws that define it. You can
learn more at the FSIS Web site, www.fsis.usda.gov. Type in the words “humane handling” in the search box.
And FSIS is developing a DVD and companion book titled Humane Handling of
Livestock with Dr. Temple Grandin. This resource is designed to help small and
very small plant owners and managers avoid the pitfalls of noncompliance. Once it’s
available, more information will be posted on the FSIS Web site.
Host:
Thanks, Joan. We hope that our listeners now know more about some of the many
resources FSIS offers on the topic of humane handling. Thanks for tuning in.
Outro:
Well, that’s all for this episode. We’d like your feedback on our podcast. Or if you
have ideas for future podcasts, send us an e-mail at podcast@fsis.usda.gov. To learn more
about food safety, try our web site at www.fsis.usda.govv.
Thanks for tuning in.
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Last Modified: December 10, 2008 |
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