Maintenance of good animal welfare standards in beef slaughter plants by use of auditing programs

Abstract

The public has become increasingly concerned poor about farm animal welfare. Although all veterinarians do not work with farm animals, it is important that all can answer questions on that subject from their clients or others. One area of concern is how animals are treated at slaughter plants. Many people are not aware that restaurant companies have been auditing animal welfare in slaughter plants since 1999. This has resulted in great improvements in cattle handling and stunning. The McDonald's Corporation started their animal welfare auditing program in 1999. Wendy's International and Burger King Corporation began their programs in 2000 and 2001, respectively. The author worked with all 3 companies on the implementation of their programs. Restaurant companies use their own auditors (who visit the plants routinely for food safety audits) to perform their welfare audits. During the last 5 years, the author has worked with McDonald's Corporation, Burger King Corporation, and Wendy's International to train foodsafety auditors to score each slaughter plant for animal welfare by use of an objective numerical scoring system 2,3 . Instead of relying on a subjective assessment, the auditor counts the percentage of cattle that was correctly stunned with 1 shot, percentage moved with an electric prod, and percentage that vocalized (moo or bellow) during handling and stunning. Vocalization is associated with blood cortisol concentrations in cattle 4 . A previous study 5 revealed that 98% of the cattle that vocalized during handling and stunning in a slaughter plant had vocalizations that were associated with an obvious aversive event, such as nonfatal attempts at stunning, slipping, use of electric prods, contact with sharp metal edges, or excessive pressure from a restraint device.