Is the slaughter of farm animals really done humanely?
As a certified Organic farmer, I can tell you that our cattle, pigs, lambs, and chickens are slaughtered humanely because I watch them. I have used 4 or 5 USDA-inspected processing plants over the years and all of them did a good job of the slaughter process, the actual kill. There is some variability in the handling of animals before slaughter, however, and that is one reason I have changed processors. Laborers that handle live animals can become impatient with moving animals into the chute, and can resort to methods I don’t allow – like using hot prods on pigs. Generally it is not a problem, though. I can’t speak for large packing houses, but from what I understand they do a good job. There is a trend amoung slaughterhouses to implement more and better handling methods. Things are much better than they were 20 years ago.
