 This video is intended to provide an overview of the Humane Handling and Slaughter Guidelines developed by Dr. Temple Grandin, a world-renowned expert in the field of animal welfare and behavior. These guidelines are very useful for objectively evaluating and improving the Humane Handling and Slaughter of Livestock. However, they are recommendations and not regulatory requirements. Keep in mind that plant management is responsible for the Humane Handling and Slaughter of Livestock, and FSIS is responsible for enforcing the appropriate regulatory statutes. My name is Temple Grandin. I am an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University. I'm also an independent consultant who works with meatpacking plants on handling and stunning and improving animal welfare. Facilities that I have designed are in many meatpacking plants all around the country, and I've been working with the industry for the last 25 years. One of the things that made me get involved is I saw a lot of rough handling, and I thought there's got to be a better way to do things. And when you do things using cattle behavior principles, it's going to have two advantages. It's going to make animal welfare better, but it's also going to improve your meat quality, and it's going to make handling much more efficient. Evaluation of stunning and handling procedures in slaughter plants has three major benefits. First of all, it ensures compliance with the Humane Slaughter Act. Second of all, it's going to greatly improve animal welfare. And the third benefit is calm, quiet animals that move through the plant easily are going to make the plant operate more efficiently. In this video, I'm going to discuss a scoring system for objectively evaluating animal handling and stunning. And these are the following critical control points. Efficacy of stunning in beef. You score the percentage of animals shot with one shot effectively, and in hogs, the percentage of animals where the electrodes are placed correctly. The second critical control point is scoring the insensibility of the animals on a bleeding rail. The third critical control point is a vocalization scoring in cattle and pigs. The fourth point is scoring the percentage of animals I hit with an electric prod, and you want to make that as low as possible. And the last thing you score is slipping and falling. There's absolutely no way you can have humane, calm, quiet handling if animals are falling down on slippery floors. And the main purpose of this video is to go step by step through each thing and show you how to evaluate and improve handling and stunning. The first thing I'd like to discuss is evaluation and scoring of electric stunning. To be humane, an electrical current of sufficient amperage must pass through the brain to render the pig instantly insensible. To do this, it has to create a grand mal epileptic seizure. Electric research has shown that under plant conditions, 1.25 amps is required for pigs and 1 amp for sheep. The electrodes must be positioned so that the brain is in the current path. And there are two basic types of electric stunning. There is head-only electric stunning where the current just goes through the head, and if the pig or the sheep is not bled promptly, it will regain consciousness. The second type of stunning, which is used in most large plants in the U.S., is cardiac arrest stunning, where the current is simultaneously passed between the head and the body of the animal. Now, the electrode that's placed on the head has to be placed so that the brain will be in the current path. You must never, never, never place the head electrode on the neck. This would end up causing cardiac arrest and killing the pig, but it would not be humane because the pig would feel heart attack symptoms instead of being rendered instantly insensible. This table shows the scoring criteria for electric stunning. 99.5% correct placement would be excellent to get an acceptable rating. You have to place it correctly on 99% of the time, and anything that's below that needs to be corrected. Other type of stunning for pigs is CO2 or carbon dioxide stunning. This is increasing in popularity because the blood spotting problem is greatly reduced, and there are some reductions in PSE. The disadvantage is it's very expensive to install and operate. If you do electrical stunning really carefully, you can narrow the gap in the quality between CO2 and electrical and make it to the point where maybe the cost of the CO2 is not worthwhile. Now, there have been some animal welfare concerns about CO2 because unconsciousness is not instantaneously. If I stun a pig with electricity, he's instantly out like a light, like turning out a light. When a pig is put in CO2, it's going to take a few seconds for him to lose consciousness. Now, is he having a bad time during this time? Well, some scientific research shows there's no stress and the pig is just fine, and other research shows some problems. I've done a lot of observations, and I've seen genetic differences. You know, if you have pigs that are free of the stress gene, such as purebred Yorkshire, they'll have a very calm induction, and research has shown that excitation and kicking happens after they fall unconscious. But some of the pigs with the stress gene are throwing a big fit and trying to escape out of the container when they first contact the gas. So my opinion on CO2 is for most types of pigs, it's very good, but there are a few pigs that are going to have problems. And I want to emphasize, you must use 85 to 90% CO2 concentration, you absolutely must do this, 90% is recommended, and if you use too low a concentration, pigs may go through the chamber and not be rendered unconscious. This is one of the new CO2 systems, and it has a big advantage on handling. The single file chute has been eliminated, and pigs get stressed in single file chute. This is an animal that naturally lines up in single file, but pigs are not, and they get stressed in a single file chute. In these new systems, they bring up four or five pigs in a group, and put a group of pigs in a little elevator box that just lowers them down into the CO2. And the handling is absolutely wonderful. And I think you have to look at a whole system approach, you know, a little bit of discomfort during inhalation could be made up for it by having really good handling. Got a pig screeching and trying to escape the minute he whiffs the gas, no. That's not acceptable. This shows a small group of pigs being gently pushed into the chamber with a power gate. They just sort of like getting on a little freight elevator. I've watched a number of these systems work, from a handling standpoint, they're just fantastic. Sure, I took over in Denmark, and the man is operating a hand switch to bring the power gate up instead of having the system on full automatic. I have seen some problems with full automatic, with overcrowding of pigs. You know, power crowd gates are fine, but I like them better when a person's operating them. Because I have seen some problems in this system with overcrowding and some of the best operation of this system I have seen when the person controlled the gate that brings the pigs up to the little staging area, and then you can have it automatic for the gate that pushes them into the chamber. Now when the pigs come out of the CO2, they're going to be completely soft and limp. Electrically stunned pigs, you're going to have some kicking and stiffness in the rear end. That is normal. You can have a pig that's completely unconscious and be kicking. CO2 pigs, when they're properly stunned, come out completely limp and floppy. You might just get one or two little tiny feeble kicks, and again, absolutely no spontaneous natural blinking. I was over in Denmark recently, and we talked about assessing insensibility, and they really liked the idea of watching for those natural, spontaneous blinks, like the live pig in the yard. You see one of those, you've got a problem. Now this is the order of events of returning to sensibility in CO2 stunned pigs. Now you can do CO2 two ways. You can keep them in there long enough so that they'll be killed by the CO2, or just keep them in a short period of time, and it just temporarily anesthetizes them. Now the first thing that comes back is an extremely weak corneal reflex that you'd get if you touched the surface of the eye very gently with a pencil. At that point, the animal is still unconscious. Then the next thing that comes back is you'll see breathing. Then you'll get an excitation phase, and then you'll start to see some eye vibration. The next thing that comes back is the natural blinking, and at this point, the pig is definitely conscious. Now at some of these other things, is the pig conscious or unconscious? That's really not known. But when you have that very weak reflex that's evoked by touch, they are unconscious at that point. In fact, in Denmark, you're allowed to have 5% of the weak corneal reflexes, but you are allowed to have no natural blinking. Natural blinking is just forbidden, and this chart here just shows the order of return to consciousness, and it's a hierarchy. You know, it's not a black and white thing. The pig gradually becomes aware. In beef cattle, captive bolt stunning is used. And it's extremely important that the captive bolt guns are well maintained. One of the number one causes of poor captive bolt stunning is failure to maintain the gun. A well-maintained gun will have maximum hitting power, so it will render the animal completely insensible. Another thing that causes a problem in captive bolt stunning is the ergonomics on some of the heavy pneumatic stunners. They're very heavy and difficult for the person to position, because the most effective captive bolt stunning is done right smack in the middle of the head. And on some of the pneumatic guns they're so heavy, it's hard for the person to position the gun. So it's important that it be equipped with balancers and other devices to make it easy for the person to operate. Captive bolt stunning can be objectively scored. If the operator is able to shoot 99% of the cattle on the first shot, that would be excellent. And 95% shot correctly on the first shot would be acceptable. Anything below that would be not acceptable, and there needs to be improvements made. When electrical stunning is used, it's important to have a short, stunning to stick interval. Especially when you use head-only reversible electric stunning. Scientific research has shown that the pig will revive and return to insensibility within 30 seconds after the stun is stopped. And some scientists recommend that the stunning to bleeding interval should be 15 seconds. The absolute maximum is 30 seconds. When you use cardiac arrest, head-to-body stunning, stunning to stick intervals less critical, because the animal's heart is stopped. But it's still recommended to get them bled within 60 seconds. Another advantage of a short, stunning to stick interval with either type of stunning is it will help reduce particular hemorrhages in the meat and improve the quality of the meat. It is ideal to get pigs and sheep bled within 10 to 15 seconds after stunning for both humane and for meat quality reasons. For captive-bolt stunning, for humane reasons, it doesn't really matter how long a stunning to stick interval is. But you do want to not let them hang too long. Both bleed rail insensibility and stunning should be scored at both the beginning and the end of the shift. Because sometimes the operator gets fatigued and the stunning efficacy will decrease as the shift continues on into the day. Now I'd like to discuss how do you tell whether or not an animal is properly stunned when he's hanging on the shackle on the bleed rail. First of all, ignore the limb movement. Most of that limb movement is just reflexes. You need to look at the head. And what I like to tell people is make sure the head is dead and forget about the rest of the body. Cattle and pigs hanging on the rail should have a straight back, and the head should be very floppy, just like a dish red. Completely relaxed and floppy. There should be no riding reflex. If you hang a sensible animal on the bleed rail, he will try to raise his head. The head should hang straight down and be floppy. If the tongue is hanging out straight and floppy, the animal is insensible and properly stunned. An animal that could possibly be returning to consciousness may have a curled tongue. But a straight tongue, it's properly stunned. Gasping can be ignored because gasping is a sign of a dying brain. Any livestock that's showing any signs of returning to sensibility must be immediately shot with a captive bolt gun. The following signs indicate return to sensibility. Rhythmic breathing. You must never see rhythmic breathing when an animal is hanging on the bleeding rail. Vocalization of any kind, absolutely not. Eye reflexes in response to touch is another sign of return to sensibility. Eye blinking is not acceptable. And then also the arched back riding reflex. Now immediately after you shoot an animal with a captive bolt or stun it with an electric stunner, you are gonna get a rigid spasm. That's normal. You do this scoring after the animal is hung up and he's hanging vertically upside down on the bleeding rail. The table shows a scoring criteria for bleed rail insensibility and stunning. It's essential to have non-slip flooring. Humane, quiet handling is impossible if animals are slipping and falling. Many old facilities floors have been rubbed smooth and animals will be slipping. And one of the ways to fix that in an existing facility is to make a grating out of metal rods. And the metal rods should be welded together like this, never this way. On an alley floor that's too smooth, you can rent a grooving machine that will put grooves in the floor. This often works a lot better than saw cuts. Now in new facilities for cattle, you need to make deep grooves that are about eight inch square or diamond pattern and they should be at least one inch deep. For pigs, a very good new facility floor is to make a stamp out of expanded metal mesh and print the pattern of expanded metal mesh into the floor. Broom finishes are too smooth. They simply do not work. They may work for about six months and then they wear out. You've got to have a rougher pattern than just a broom finish floor. The table shows a scoring for slipping and falling. There's a separate score for slipping and another score for falling. One of the big problem areas in a beef plant is the floor of the stunning box. And that can usually be fixed by making a grating out of metal bars. Another thing that some stunning boxes need is you need to make a tow rail so the animal's foot doesn't slip off the platform. Because if the animal's foot slips out and the animal starts feeling like he's gonna fall, he's gonna panic and he's gonna be difficult to stun and he's gonna be jumping around and stressed. Scoring of vocalization can be used to evaluate animal welfare of pigs and cattle. You do the scoring when the animal is actually being handled in the chute going up to the stunner. You score them in the crowd pen, the single file chute and the stunning box. You never score the animals out in the yards because animals that are waiting out in the yard sometimes just kind of talk to each other and that's not the stress. But if animals squeal, bellow or move while they're actually being moved up to stunning chute, this is a sign of stress. In cattle, you score cattle as either being a vocalizer or not a vocalizer. He either goes through the whole system without moving or bellowing or he doesn't get through the whole system without moving or bellowing. You never use vocalization scoring in sheep because when sheep are quietly walking up the chute, they will sometimes go bah to each other. Now I'd like to discuss some ways to reduce vocalization. One of the biggest causes of excessive amounts of vocalization is excessive use of electric prods. In the survey I did on humane slaughter and stunning practices, the number one cause of vocalization was too much electric prod usage. Now there's some things that you can do that will help you reduce electric prod usage. First of all, training and supervision of employees. It's also important to make sure the animals are not seeing distractions up ahead in the chute that will cause blocking, things such as seeing a person up ahead. Proper lighting is essential. Animals will not go into a dark hole. Use a spotlight to light up the entrance of a restrainer or light up the entrance of a chute. Also shadows can cause blocking. If you're using a head restraint or any kind of a restraint device, especially in ritual slaughter, it's important that the device moves slowly and smoothly. Sudden jerky motion scares animals. It's also important that the restrainer have no sharp edges that would dig into an animal or cause a pressure point. It's also important to minimize head restraint time. The instant you lock an animal's head in a head restraint, either stun it or ritually slaughter it. Don't let it stay on there fighting the head restraint. And we just got a very good example there of a cattle vocalization on a conveyor restraining system. It's important that both sides of a v-conveyor move at the same rate of speed. And last but not least, you must have non-slip flooring. One cause of elevated vocalizations in cattle was slippery floors in a stunning box that caused the animals to panic. When you reduce electric prod use, you're gonna reduce stress on the animals, improve welfare, but also have the added benefit of improving meat quality, especially in pigs. Pigs that get all excited and start squealing in the stunning chute about five minutes prior to slaughter are gonna have more pale, soft, exodative meat. So there's also a good economic reason for gentle, calm handling. Some of the extra lean pigs have a very excitable temperament, which makes them difficult to handle at the meat packing plant. Makes them very blocky and they block it things that a calmer pig will not block at. Now there's several things that a producer can do to help improve handling. One is genetic selection for calmer animals. Two is walking through their finishing pens at home to get the pigs used to having people in the pens. Because some of these hybrids are so flighty that humane handling at the plant is almost impossible and progressive meat packing plant managers have been working with producers to produce a calmer pig that will be easier to handle at the plant. In a well-designed beef system, it's possible to move 95% of the cattle through the whole entire system without an electric prod. The only time that electric prod is used is just a little bit at the stunning box entrance. When I did my survey on stunning and handling practices, I found that just a little bit of education of employees made it possible to drastically reduce electric prod use. Employees need to understand cattle and hog behavior principles, such as point of balance and flight zone and use these principles to move animals. When an animal is in a chute, they should try tapping it on the rear end first before using a prod. Most plants now have totally eliminated electric prod use out in the stockyards. And the only place they are used is in the chute going up to the stutter. And the electric prod should never be the person's primary tool. Electric prod is something you only pick up and use when an animal box. The primary tool should be something else, like a little stick with a piece of plastic on the end, a plastic paddle stick, a plastic bag, something like this is your primary tool. Now, if animals bark and refuse to move, it can sometimes make it impossible to reduce electric prod usage. And you've got to find the distractions that are making those animals bark. Get down in the chute and look up the chute with an animal's point of view so you can see what's causing the barking. It may be a shiny reflection off of water, a shiny reflection on a piece of metal. It may be water tripping. It may be a shadow. There may be air blowing in their face. Animals will not go up a chute if air blows in their face. They may see a person up ahead or just see a person's hand up ahead. You've got to get all of these distractions moved. Another important principle with pigs and cattle is move small groups. Fill the crowding pen only half full and move small groups. Sheep can be just moved in one great big group because you don't want to break the flow. And last, I'd like to say, I can't emphasize enough the importance of supervision and management on maintaining good handling. It's extremely important to never overload the crowd pen with pigs or cattle. The crowd pen that leads up to the single file chute should be filled only half to three quarters full. Animals need room to turn. Handlers must also avoid the mistake of pushing the crowd gate up too tightly against the animals. Put the crowd gate on the first notch and use driving aids such as a stick with a piece of plastic on it to turn the animals and move them up the chute. And if the animals do not go up the chute easily, then you need to look for distractions. Things like a shadow, a chain hanging down, air blowing down the chute into the animals' faces. But fill those pens only half full. Now in sheep, you can go ahead and fill the thing all the way up because sheep is a little different than cattle and pigs. With sheep, you never want to break the flow. It's sort of like siphoning them through the chute, like siphoning water. But cattle and pigs, you want to handle in small discrete bunches and leave enough room in that crowd pen so the pigs and cattle have room to turn so that they can easily go up the single file chute. People that are handling animals need to understand the behavioral principles of animal handling. An animal has a flight zone. The flight zone is the animal's safety zone. And the size of this flight zone is gonna vary depending upon how wild or tame the animal is. Cattle, sheep, and pigs all have a flight zone. A completely tame, halter broke animal has no flight zone at all. An animal that seldom sees people may have a very large flight zone. Oftentimes you'll see cattle rear up in a chute at a meatpacking plant. One of the things that causes this is people getting too close. The animal's rearing because he wants to get away from you. Just the person should just back up and get out of the flight zone. Okay, now I'm gonna show you a diagram that shows how the flight zone works. Handlers need to work on the edge of the flight zone. And you'll notice on the diagram that there's a point of balance. If you want to make your animal go forward, you stand behind the point of balance. If you want to make the animal go backwards, you stand in front of the point of balance. Now often, a whole bunch of cattle will move forward when you walk in the direction opposite of desired movement. Like for example, if you want them to go up the ramp, up the stunner, if you walk back down the catwalk, as you pass the point of balance of each animal, the animal will run away up the ramp in order to get away from you. That's using the animal's behavior rather than using force. Other behavioral principles are things like blocking the animal's vision in a restraint device. You do this so he doesn't see you too close to him, deep in the flight zone, the animal's gonna be a lot calmer. The use of the scoring systems that I've discussed will give you an objective way of measuring improvements and handling. But you will also see improvements in things like reduction of bruises, reduction of meat quality problems, especially in pigs, and reduction of injuries. Improving handling improves both animal welfare and the efficiency of the plant.