A humane slaughter, define it.

[Saje]

Oh I wouldn't go there. Steve's told me all about it though. He worked on lots of different lines. It's a dangerous business. For people too. A lot of people get hurt there

Sure, things are probably different all over the world but in any area where cattle is a major resource it's going to be pretty busy. People have to ship a long way too. There aren't a lot of slaughterhouses.

There is a local guy who goes to people's home to kill their own cows and butcher them. He's a neat guy and I think that's a pretty humane way. They don't have to be shipped or anything.

 

[Muggie'sMum]

We ship about eight hours from here to the nearest abbatoire which is Breton (I think it's still called that??) in Quebec. Shipping that short of a distance isn't a huge deal, I think that the shipping laws on this end of things are very humane - as long as they're not hauling long enough that the animals need food/water, etc...


I feel like I am misinformed going into great detail about what goes on inside - while I admittedly get my information from sources I 100% trust (my father and my vet), I feel like a bit of a hypocrite going on about stuff like this without seeing the actual, factual truth, ugly as it may be, with my own two eyes.

 

[Squidbert]

I see a lot of ya'll are against the way that cattle farms slaughter animals.

This is with a bolt being driven into the back of their neck at the bottom of the cerebral column which paralyzes them instantly. Then they're hung up on racks and the throat is slit. The animal is effectively 'dead' to itself the moment the bolt hits (takes about .2 seconds from the bolt entering the skin to knocking out the cow).

So what is inhumane about that? The .2 seconds of pain that they might feel?

If that's the case, define what IS a humane slaughter. Gassing them in a chamber so they pass out THEN slitting their throat?


I'm curious.

That sounds like humane slaughter to me..
The actual slaughter process isn't what bothers me about the whole cattle farming thing.. it's how they're treated while living that bothers me..

I'm from Newfoundland and of course the awful place that kills baby seals.. In my mind clubbing a seal on the head and killing them with one blow is humane.. messy and gruesome yes.. but still humane..

 

[GlassOnion]

Look the animals are not flayed alive. They have to drain the blood before they can process the carcass. So even if the bolt didn't paralyze them they would not be getting flayed alive. Stripping the skin off is a very carefully done process (after all that's good leather) and no one wants blood stained leather. That's a waste.

Sorry, but I was given the tools by nature to eat meat, and eat meat I will do.

Well technically the tools we have now a days are very unnatural. We weren't given any tools like claws and the like. We were given a very advanced brain though.

But then again you can look into nature and see tools being used. Eagles drop turtles on rocks to break the shell (how humane do you think THAT is?), octopuses use sticks/rocks to open shells, etc.



And yes, I've been in several slaughterhouses. I've watched cows get slaughtered, pigs, sheep, and even a horse get slaughtered and processed.


As for the embryo getting slaughtered, that's a whole different topic as to when the embryo is technically 'alive' and sentient. Also wasting a perfectly good calf...I've not heard of that happening very often. The pure blood, yah I've heard of that but a lot of farmers would rather get the calf and sell it to a feedlot after its weaned.


I want to know what ya'll think the humane method of slaughter is. An axe to the neck? A bullet? I'm sure a lot of people would love to use a bullet, it's a lot cheaper than what they currently do and easier. But they've been banned from using bullets because they're inhumane.

Anyhow, 'I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables' will still always be my favorite shirt.


As to hunting, what would you want us to hunt with? A gun? That's unnatural. A bow? Still unnatural but closer. Crude bows don't always kill in one hit, not even close. Modern day bows with all the science we've put into them for maximum punch kill nice and clean but that's not exactly natural.

So perhaps a sharpened stick? Waste of meat, and would take tons of stabs to kill the animal. I can't imagine that being much more humane.

 

[Chul3l3ies1126]

I think most humans try to slaughter as humanely as possible, of course you cant get it perfect, but thats part of nature

So then you don't care if the animal is in agonizing pain? Analogy: dog is on the road trying to cross, what is better, it getting hit head on so that it dies instantly? or it getting clipped horribly and it crawls off to die on the side of the road in horrible pain? For you not to care if an animal is in pain and to think that slaughtering mistakes is just part of nature (which is really not) makes you a cold and sad person. Is the way that they are treated their whole lives before they are taken to slaughter a part of nature as well? I read the first couple of pages and said well, i'm not going to comment, but as soon as I saw that, it just hurt me and I had to. Think about what you said, unless you really don't care.

 

[Muggie'sMum]

Better than paralyzed when hit with the captive bolt - they're dead - their body may still move but the brain is dead which means no pain is felt and no life is sustainable.

LOL Squiddy, you're getting awfully close to a tangly can of worms with the seals! I had someone from the grand ole south of the US telling me that the only reason that Canadians don't disagree with the seal hunt is because our government shields what REALLY goes on from us and feeds us lies about economy, etc, while PETA shows the rest of the world what's really happening. Yeah, like what? Hiring people to bludgeon baby seals inhumanely because they couldn't find enough atrocities to fill their videos!

 

[Muggie'sMum]

Chul, I think what K9 is referring to is not an inhumane practice itself but the fact that accidents and mistakes do happen so - 1 in X number may not die on the first blow.

 

[GlassOnion]

Chul3l3ies1126:

How can you say that? Have you ever seen a pack of animals hunting a prey? While I've never seen it with my own eyes I don't think the documentaries are too far off.

So is a lion ripping the throat out of a gazelle better for you? It's not an instant death by any means. I don't see how the 'unnatural' arguement holds water when it's more humane than nature will ever be.

Or should we do things MORE brutally so that it's more natural?

 

[Whisper]

As many of us said, the issue more lies with how they live before they are slaughtered.

Originally posted by ~Jessie~The mass killing of animals for human consumption was never what nature intended... this is my opinion though.

I agree.
I think hunting by yourself is a lot better and more fair in my eyes. The animal has a chance to escape and it takes place almost like other animals hunt. Grouping animals together and producing them for no other purpose but to be slaughtered is about as unnatural as it gets IMO.

 

[Zoom]

My friend Matt just spent the summer up in Nebraska, which totes itself as "The Beef State" and has Omaha Steak, etc. Anyway, he said that the majority of the cattle up there are in these massive feedlots where cows are raised from weanlings to slaughtering age. Nothing but corn to eat, a few square feet to roam and dirt and mud to walk in. Then they get shipped to slaughter, where many of them wait another couple of days in tighter quarters before heading to slaughter. He said the meat up there just tastes like crap. Literally.

Then you come down Kansas where we (for the most part, there are some huge feedlots out towards Colorado) let the cattle go free-range, then are rounded up and sent to slaughter. I went to college in a town that was the main meat packer for I don't know how big of an area. Tuesday was cattle day and the pens would be full to busting by noon and mostly empty by 9pm.

You just can't beat free-range, grass-fed beef.

 

[Saje]

Look the animals are not flayed alive. They have to drain the blood before they can process the carcass. So even if the bolt didn't paralyze them they would not be getting flayed alive. Stripping the skin off is a very carefully done process (after all that's good leather) and no one wants blood stained leather. That's a waste.

Stripping the skin is done on a machine and it's done very quickly. My bf was told of a man who got caught in that machine once...

As for the embryo getting slaughtered, that's a whole different topic as to when the embryo is technically 'alive' and sentient. Also wasting a perfectly good calf...I've not heard of that happening very often. The pure blood, yah I've heard of that but a lot of farmers would rather get the calf and sell it to a feedlot after its weaned.

I said fetus, fully developed, not embryo. There is a huge difference. An embryo wouldn't even be able to have it's neck slit I don't think. It happens quite often as people sometimes don't even realize the calf is pregnant. My bf said that about one in 10 cows that went through had live fetuses. And yes, they were alive.

As to hunting, what would you want us to hunt with? A gun? That's unnatural. A bow? Still unnatural but closer. Crude bows don't always kill in one hit, not even close. Modern day bows with all the science we've put into them for maximum punch kill nice and clean but that's not exactly natural.

So perhaps a sharpened stick? Waste of meat, and would take tons of stabs to kill the animal. I can't imagine that being much more humane.

When I talk about hunting being more natural I'm talking about the method of killing and how the animals lived beforehand. Not the tools.

 

[Muggie'sMum]

Just a thought...

If you must keep something confined because you don't have enough space to keep it free range, it is far better to have them crammed in together with less space between them so they can do less damage to one another so that the meat is not damaged and the cattle are not injured.

 

[Chul3l3ies1126]

Chul3l3ies1126:

How can you say that? Have you ever seen a pack of animals hunting a prey? While I've never seen it with my own eyes I don't think the documentaries are too far off.

So is a lion ripping the throat out of a gazelle better for you? It's not an instant death by any means. I don't see how the 'unnatural' arguement holds water when it's more humane than nature will ever be.

Or should we do things MORE brutally so that it's more natural?

Well, possibly yes. That is what nature is. Not humans killing animals inhumanely. I'm not saying I don't eat meat, I can't live without it. I just wish there was a better way to do it, the quick death I mean. There are too many people who don't care about the to be slaughtered animals, and so they treat them horribly, and some people don't care if they make a mistake when they are paralyzing them or transporting them or raising them. One thing to add, a while back a truck load of 150 pigs were in my town going to a facilty!!! That's what I mean, he stated he couldnt take them out of the truck without permission, they were dying from heat exhaustion right there. There was no excuse for that. They just didn't care. (JMO) It was all over the news. Animal lovers wrote to the editor, I did as well, I'll see if I can find it in my computer for you all. here's the aritcle from my paper.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/ts_comments.php?id=P72063_0_10_0

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Muggie'sMom Quote
"Just a thought...

If you must keep something confined because you don't have enough space to keep it free range, it is far better to have them crammed in together with less space between them so they can do less damage to one another so that the meat is not damaged and the cattle are not injured."

They did that in this case, but if they would not have been crammed on top of eachother, so many in one truck, maybe more would have had a chance. I think they tried to make it sound like an honest mistake, but there is just no excuse for that. Some people were there even wanting to get the poor things out, but they needed "permission" to not let them die.

 

[Denaluvscorgis]

I've actually never seen a slaughter house first hand. When I referred on a previous thread (humanely slaughtered)...I wasn't thinking about an animal being killed for food purposes and referred to (humanely) as euthanizing...like one of our pets. I don't think any animal should have to suffer pain like that EVER. I've worked for farmers before, and they always told me that animals don't feel the same type of pain that we do, and I totally disagree with that statement. I've seen animals during these processes, and they certainly do display the same signs of pain that we do. I think that people don't WANT to really think that they feel pain like us or they couldn't live with themselves when administering such things. Animals also can't speak like us to let someone know when they hurt. I think it's time for me to become a vegitarian now.

 

[Muggie'sMum]

If that trucker ever wanted to drive again, you're darn right he didn't let those pigs off the trailer without permission! Don't blame the trucker in that case! Yeesh!

Ususally on hot days, you're meant to "water" the pigs - spray water into the double decker to cool them down since they can't sweat and don't pant.

 

[Denaluvscorgis]

I feel so bad for all of the animals like that!!

 

[Whisper]

I feel so bad for all of the animals like that!!

Me too. . .

 

[Chul3l3ies1126]

If that trucker ever wanted to drive again, you're darn right he didn't let those pigs off the trailer without permission! Don't blame the trucker in that case! Yeesh!

Ususally on hot days, you're meant to "water" the pigs - spray water into the double decker to cool them down since they can't sweat and don't pant.

Sigh, ok fine if you want to say its ok for animals to die horrible deaths because it's illegal to take them out to water them. If a dog was in a hot car that was not yours, dying of heat exhaustion, would you break the rules and break the window to save it? I think anyone who loves animals would. I know I would break the rules for an animal. But then again, no real animal lover would get into that kind of buisiness. (JMO)

 

[smkie]

can you imagine the population today if all of the meat eaters went out to hunt their own meat? I wouldn't take a step out my door. I can't see most of em eating squirrel, rabbit or possum either.

 

[Muggie'sMum]

Well I certainly hope you're never put in a position where you have to choose between transporting animals to an unpleasant end (not actually DOING anything to them) or feeding your family! Your family would starve!

You have to work to feed your family and that is precisely why my dad did that. Sometimes you have no choice, and I defy you to tell my fifty year old dad who has devoted his entire life to our breeding program, his dogs, and raising sheep that he doesn't "really" love animals.

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. People are so quick to blame truck drivers for things like these, but they don't understand the inside of things.