A Meat and Dairy Article from All-Creatures.org

There's No Such Thing as 'Humane Slaughter' of Livestock—Federal Records Prove It

From Colin Henstock, Earth|Food|Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute
March 2023

Federal inspection records reveal horrifying violations in which cows, pigs, and other animals have endured physical pain and psychological terror at slaughterhouses, where prolonged deaths occur disturbingly frequently. 

Most meat-eaters want to believe that the animals they eat don’t suffer, but time and again, federal records have shown that they do. It’s not unreasonable to assume otherwise; after all, most U.S. meat production is subject to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires that animals be stunned (rapidly rendered insensible to pain) before they’re hoisted upside down and killed.

But this law doesn’t apply to all animals—chickens, turkeys, ducks, and fish are excluded—and federal inspection records reveal horrifying violations in which cows, pigs, and other animals have endured physical pain and psychological terror at slaughterhouses, where prolonged deaths occur disturbingly frequently.

Reports from around the country read like horror stories. For example, on three different days between June and August 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) staff at South 40 Farms in North Dakota saw pigs cry out after being shot in the head during botched attempts to render them unconscious, and on another day in April 2022, a steer attempted to sit up after an employee from the same establishment shot him twice in the head.

At Lightfoot Farm Market & Processing in Tennessee, a steer cried out and remained conscious after three rifle shots to the head until a fourth shot finally ended his suffering in June 2022. A similar scene was witnessed at the same facility in 2021, when a cow remained conscious, bleeding from the nose after the slaughterhouse owner shot her in the head the first time.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.

 

Slaughterhouses are hidden away like a terrible secret. But in our hearts, we know that “humane slaughter” is an oxymoron.

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