Humane treatment of farm animals? Bah!

[oboe]

I'm not going to become a vegetarian as a result of the video.  

I do prefer that thinking, feeling animals are dispatched as humanely as possible, according to state and federal law, rather than being hoisted by the hind legs and having their throats slashed while they are fully conscious, as the video shows.

[Skydancer]

I agree, humanely is the way.

It also applies to how the animal is kept prior top slaughter.

In Britain Pigs must be kept in open fields. So I always buy British Bacon. likewise I don't eat veal, or eggs produced by battery hens.

[stantond]

Bleeding to death is not painful.  The romans preferred that form of suicide.  The most pain the hog would feel would be the knife cutting.  I expect most (if you live long enough) will experience much more pain at the doctors office.  

My grandfather used to slaughter his own pigs. It was before my time so I never got to witness that sort of thing.  Everything but the squeel was used.  Personally, I would not want to hear the animal squeeling as it bleed to death, but it's not suffering.  I have to wonder why they would not want to knock them out.

PETA is a joke and not a very good one at that.  They don't do their homework and advocate such things as not drinking milk because of the treatment of dairy cattle.  If you don't treat a dairy cow properly, they won't produce milk.  

I have not searched out a video of slaughtering conscious hogs, but I expect it would not be pleasant to watch.  I don't like watching medical video's either.  




Regards,

Malta

[myelo]

Originally posted by stantond
Bleeding to death is not painful.  The romans preferred that form of suicide.  The most pain the hog would feel would be the knife cutting.  I expect most (if you live long enough) will experience much more pain at the doctors office.  

The problem is restraint of the animal during the throat cut and bleeding. Pigs are typically hung upside down by their legs during this procedure. This is quite stressful and considered inhumane, which is why they are supposed to be rendered unconscious by stunning before going on the bleed rail.

An exception to this is ritual slaughter of cattle, sheep and goats according to the Jewish and Muslem diet codes. In the US, ritual slaughter is exempt from the humane slaughter act in order to protect freedom of religion (this is not the case in Canada and Europe). These animals are not required to be stunned prior to bleeding. Most large plants use a system that restrains the animal in a comfortable upright position. With proper technique and knife design, this results in minimal stress to the animal.

In addition to the humane aspects, avoiding excess pain and stress improves meat quality, avoids delays in the line due to balking animals, and is safer for personnel.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by myelo


In addition to the humane aspects, avoiding excess pain and stress improves meat quality, avoids delays in the line due to balking animals, and is safer for personnel.

That is not true, these meat producers would not be concerned about product quality, efficiency, profits, safety or anything eldse. Thjeir primary goal is to induce pain and suffering to the animals, and that video proves it!

[XtrmeJ]

Hehe, accross from campus one day, the neighbors that lived about 100 feet from our grounds were killing a pig by jamming a large wooden pole into it's mouth and down it's throat.

 I assume they were trying to puncture it's organs? Well this tortue went on for about an hour before the pig was finally killed. Thought that was a terrible way to do it.

Most of the folks around were pretty quiet for the rest of the day having witnessed it.
 

I'm not a pro, but there has got to be a better way. Maybe living on Hawaii, which is infested with stupid locals, has got something to do with it.

[oboe]

Myelo,

You strike me as someone who knows something about which you speak.    Are you in the meat industry?

Grun, the organization is not PETA.   Its called Defending Farm Animals.   The website is http://www.defendingfarmanimals.org

[Elfie]

PETA is a joke and not a very good one at that. They don't do their homework and advocate such things as not drinking milk because of the treatment of dairy cattle. If you don't treat a dairy cow properly, they won't produce milk.

PETA pulls the same thing with Mink farms. PETA says the mink are abused and mistreated, kept in dirty pens and not taken care of. Thats just rediculous, if it were true the pelts would never go prime and the mink farmer would go out of buisiness in a hurry.

[Elfie]

Here's a true story about when I worked at Farmland Foods.

MY job was boning the shank (knee down) on hams. I did this as the ham went by me on the conveyor belt. The next guy on the line boned out the femur.

One day, I noticed this horrible smell as I was boning a shank. The guy boning the femur was running behind that day since he was experiencing difficulties keeping his knife sharp. He should have been about 3 feet from me, instead he was about 15 feet further down the line. As he ran his knife through this one particular ham he discovered that the entire inside of the ham was abcessed (sp?). How did he discover this? The abcess burst and the contents squirted him directly in the face. His response was to IMMEDIATELY vomit all over the line! I am normally a sympathy puker, but I somehow managed to hold back the bile that day.

They had to shut down the line and sterlize it all over again. The guy that puked got yelled at by the foreman for making a mess all over the line.

Before I worked in a slaughter house my favorite meat was ham. 15 years later I am just getting to where I can eat ham and enjoy it again. However, seeing someone eat guacamole sauce still makes me gag to this day. (Guacamole is the same color and consistency as the inside of an adcess).

[oboe]

One of the toughest factory jobs I had was in a food processing plant, where I worked on the rib-boning line one summer during college.   My job was to open the boxes of ribs at the end of the conveyor line and sent the meat down the line to the cutters.    Just when I got good enough to keep up with the cutters, they gave me a second line to keep stocked!

One morning at 6:30am I opened the boxes where the rib meat had started to turn - alot of the meat was splotched with blue/green where it shoulda been red.   And boy what a smell that early in the morning.    Had to breath through my mouth to keep from spewing.