Slaughter and killing

Understanding how animals are killed for food is clearly not a pleasant subject. 

However, all consumers have a right to be aware of how animals farmed for food production are killed, and to understand the extent of the killing involved, in order to make an informed choice as to whether or not they wish to be a part of it.

But animals are only killed for meat, surely?  You don’t need to kill animals to take milk or eggs from them?

All foods taken from animals, not just meat, involve killing in order to produce them.

While it is obvious that animals are killed to produce meat, what is perhaps less obvious to the consumer is that large-scale killing is also an unavoidable part of farming animals for milk and eggs.   

For every egg-laying hen hatched, a male chick is killed at less than a day old, as they cannot be used to produce eggs or meat.  Over 30 million male chicks a year are killed in the UK.¹

Dairy cows are made to give birth every year to keep them producing enough milk. The calves are taken from their mothers at a very young age, usually soon after birth.  The surplus calves who are not kept as dairy cows will either be shot at birth or killed later on as part of the meat industry.²

Dairy cows and egg-laying hens themselves are killed when they cease to produce enough milk or eggs to remain profitable, at a young age relative to their natural lifespans.^3,4

This is true even of ‘high-welfare’ farming systems.   Male calves and chicks cannot produce milk or eggs, and cows and hens do not produce “sufficient” quantities of milk and eggs indefinitely, whichever system they are farmed in.

What is slaughter? 

“Slaughter” is defined by The Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations (1995) as “causing the death of the animal by bleeding”.⁵

Animals farmed for food production in the UK are commonly put to death by bleeding including cattle, pigs, poultry and sheep.  This is referred to as “sticking”.⁵

Animals are hoisted onto a conveyer belt hung up by a back leg and one or both carotid arteries (which provide the main supply of blood to the brain) are slit.⁵  Both arteries are slit in the case of slaughter without pre-stunning.⁶  They are then left to bleed until death occurs.

Stunning

Stunning must be attempted before slaughter, with the exception of some religious slaughter methods which are exempt from the requirement to stun.⁵

In theory, stunning should render the animal unconscious until he or she dies.  There are concerns that stunning is not always successful, particularly in smaller birds and birds who struggle and therefore miss the electrocution bath, if the voltage used for stunning is insufficient, if stunning is administered incorrectly, or if too much time elapses between stunning and slaughter and the animal regains consciousness. ^1,7

Animals are permitted to be stunned by the following methods:⁵

·         Captive bolt

Most commonly used on cattle.  Sheep, calves, pigs and goats may also be stunned using this method.⁷

A bolt is shot into the brain to render the animal unconscious.  The shot does not kill the animal.⁷

·         Electrical stunning with tongs

Most commonly used on pigs, sheep and calves.

Tongs are placed on either side of the head to stun the animal. 

Stunning is ineffective if the tongs are placed incorrectly, for example if the animal resists or the stun is attempted too quickly or carelessly.⁷

Group-stunning of pigs, sheep, calves and goats is common.  A group of animals will be brought in to the stun pen and each one stunned in turn in front of the others.⁷

·         Electrically charged water bath

Used on poultry.

Poultry are stunned by suspending the animals upside down by their legs in shackles and submerging their heads in an electrically charged water bath. 

It is recommended that the shackles should be sprayed with water to increase the effectiveness of the electrical stun.⁸

Inverting poultry before stunning causes them distress as it is unnatural for them to be upside down. It also causes fractures, particularly in egg-laying hens whose bones are weakened from being used for egg production.¹

What is killing?

“Killing” is defined by WASK (1995) as,  “causing the death of the animal by any process other than slaughter”.⁵

Permitted killing methods (depending on the species of animal) include:⁵

·         Gas chamber stunning and killing

Used on pigs and poultry.  Day-old male chicks are also killed by gassing.

Referred to as “exposure to gas mixtures”⁵ or “controlled atmosphere stun killing”.⁸

Gas stunning does not immediately cause the animal to lose consciousness and animals can show signs of distress in the period between exposure to gas and becoming unconscious.⁷

·         “Instantaneous Mechanical Destruction”

Day-old male chicks are minced alive using “mechanical apparatus producing immediate death” ⁵ which must contain “rapidly rotating mechanically operated killing blades or projections”.⁵

·         Shooting

Most commonly used to kill unwanted dairy calves and surplus lambs.

The Humane Slaughter Association recommends that “an appropriate firearm is the most effective and humane means of killing calves”, preferably a shotgun, aimed at the middle of the forehead.⁹

An estimated 180,000 male calves were shot at birth between June 2008 and May 2009.²

·         Poultry are also permitted to be killed by neck dislocation or decapitation.⁸

Killing of fish

Methods used to kill farmed fish are different from those used on land animals.  Farmed fish are stunned and/or killed by various methods depending on the species involved, including:^10,11,12

- electrical stunning,

- live chilling,

- asphyxia,  

- blows to the head,

- shooting,  

- exposure to carbon dioxide.

In particular, killing by asphyxia, asphyxia on ice and carbon dioxide are considered to result in poor welfare during death.  Carbon dioxide produces a strong adverse reaction and does not reliably result in unconsciousness, meaning that fish can be gutted or bled while still conscious.¹³

There are no specific regulations on if or how farmed fish should be stunned and killed.

UK slaughter and killing regulations only extend to farmed fish in a general sense that, “No person engaged in the movement, lairaging, restraint, stunning, slaughter or killing of animals shall— (a)cause any avoidable excitement, pain or suffering to any animal; or (b)permit any animal to sustain any avoidable excitement, pain or suffering.”⁵

There are no regulations covering the killing of sea-caught fish.  Fish caught at sea  simply die from suffocation once they are taken from the sea. 

Transport to the slaughterhouse

The slaughter or killing process begins with catching the animals and transporting them to the slaughterhouse. 

Transport and handling in itself can be stressful to some animals, due to being in unfamiliar surroundings.¹⁴

Catching is a particular problem for end-of-lay hens as their weakened bones mean that they are very susceptible to fractures, which often occur as they are carried by their legs, up to three birds per hand.¹

Problems during transport

Animals being transported can suffer from various problems, including:¹⁵

- heat stress due to inadequate ventilation (pigs);
- exhaustion and injury due to insufficient floor space (sheep),
- slippery floors and lack of partitions in the transporter and fear caused by being handled through inadequate loading facilities (cattle),
- exposure to heat or cold stress due to inadequately controlled ventilation (meat chickens, end-of-lay hens and newly-hatched chicks)
- presence of existing injuries and disease (end-of-lay hens)
- hypothermia (newly-hatched chicks)

Journey times

Under EU regulations, farmed animals are permitted to be transported for: up to 28 hours with a one hour break (cattle, sheep and goats); 24 hours (pigs) or 18 hours with a one hour break (unweaned lambs, kids, calves, foals and piglets).¹⁵  There is no maximum journey time for poultry.¹

Does killing have a place in ‘compassionate’ consumerism?

Sales of ‘higher-welfare’ animal ‘products’ are rising each year,¹⁶ demonstrating consumers’ ever-increasing desire for farmed animals to be treated compassionately.

The next question to ask is surely: is killing a sentient animal consistent with wanting that animal to be treated compassionately? 

Is killing acceptable?

Ask someone if they believe that killing is acceptable, and they will probably answer no, or perhaps only under a few specific circumstances (e.g. to alleviate suffering, or in self-defence or defence of another when life is at risk). 

Ask if, more specifically, they believe that killing for pleasure is acceptable, and few people would answer yes.

Despite this, many consumers continue to choose to cause the death of other sentient creatures for reasons of personal pleasure on a daily basis, each time they buy or eat animal “products”.

However; this choice is not usually the result of a conscious, rational decision in favour of killing.

Most people are brought up to believe that eating or using things taken from animals is a normal, even positive choice.  This conditioning is often well established before they are old enough to understand the concept of killing and death. 

Many people then continue to their actions largely due to habit or convenience, rather than ever having made a conscious decision to do so. 

We can also find it difficult to choose behaviour which is outside the expected norms in our families or social groups, or which differ from the values and traditions we were brought up with.  The expectation or desire to conform can be enough to deter us from considering changing our actions - even when we know that, in truth, the change will be a positive choice.

In countries where a variety of foods, clothing and other products are available and there is therefore no need to consume or use animals, it is hard to argue that choosing to cause death in this way is a necessity, rather than a choice or simply a convenient habit.

Choosing to buy vegan, 100% plant-based food and products is an easy way for consumers to be sure that the things they buy have not caused the death or suffering of a farmed animal.