How animals are killed on a farm. Effective methods for slaughtering cows, calves and bulls. Video - Industrial slaughter of cattle

To obtain cattle carcasses, animals must be transported to specially equipped enterprises (slaughterhouses or meat processing plants). In some regions, independent slaughter of livestock on private farms is allowed. This process requires certain knowledge and preparation, as it must be carried out quickly and, if possible, painlessly for the animal.

How cows are slaughtered

Proper slaughter of livestock directly affects the quality of meat products. That is why this should be done by a qualified specialist.

A prerequisite is to obtain permission from a veterinarian to use animal meat for food.

First of all, before the procedure, the animal should not be fed for a day, but only given water to drink.

Preparation

The slaughter of livestock should be carried out by a professional, even if the procedure is carried out at home, as difficulties may arise during the process.

Cow preparation also plays an important role. First of all, the cow is not fed during the day, and water is given no later than 3 hours before slaughter. This simplifies the skinning and cutting process.

But the most important condition for preparing a cow for slaughter is the calmness of the animal. Unfortunately, the animals feel the approach of slaughter and begin to get nervous. To prevent the cow from becoming stubborn, the place is prepared at a distance from the place where the cow and other animals are kept. It is also important to obtain a slaughter permit from a veterinarian. The animal must be absolutely healthy, and if it has recently been vaccinated, the doctor may prohibit slaughter, since the meat of such cattle can be dangerous to human health.

Stun

Before slaughter, the cow is taken to a previously prepared place and tied to a crossbar by the horns and neck. Then the animal must be stunned by hitting the joint of the occipital bone and the first vertebra with the blunt side of an ax or any other heavy blunt object (Figure 1). From this blow the animal loses consciousness for several minutes. During this time, you need to cut the cervical artery and hang the carcass to drain the blood.

Home slaughter

Home slaughter of cows must be carried out in accordance with all rules and hygiene standards. At home, not only the stunning method is used, but also firearms.

In case of stunning, the artery is cut with a sharp knife, and cutting begins after the carcass is completely bled. If the procedure is carried out with a firearm, aim at a point located on the forehead between the eyes. In some cases, one shot may not be enough to kill the animal.

Commercial slaughter

The slaughter of cows in industrial conditions has been put on stream. The animals are transferred to a special pen with a mobile platform. Each cow is placed in a separate cramped compartment in which the animal's movements are limited. Slaughter is carried out using a special impact pistol. The cartridge is fired into the middle of the cow's forehead, and the animal dies immediately. After this, they begin cutting up the carcass.

Cow cutting

Before cutting, the carcass must be completely drained of blood. To do this, it is suspended vertically, and a clean basin is placed under the incision to drain the blood. Typically this process takes 10 minutes.

Skinning

After the cow is slaughtered, the skin is removed from the animal using a sharp knife. First, the ears are cut off, and then circular cuts are made around the nose, mouth and horns. Removal begins from the head. Then an incision is made between the head and the cervical vertebrae, and the head is separated from the carcass.

Further skinning is carried out as follows::

• The headless carcass is placed on its back onto special drains;
• A circular incision is made around the anus;
• Circular incisions are made around the joints, and longitudinal incisions are made along the legs to the abdomen;
• The lower hock joints on the legs are cut off.

After this, they begin to remove the skin, first from the legs, then from the neck and sides, then from the chest and move to the back.

Carcass cutting

Cutting up a cow carcass begins with opening the chest. They split it with an ax, then bandage the trachea and remove it along with the stomach.

Note: The trachea must be bandaged so that the contents of the stomach do not contaminate the meat.

Taken out of the chest internal organs and place them in separate sterile containers. During the cutting process, a veterinarian must be present who can confirm the quality of the meat. If no pathologies are found, the carcass is divided into two half-carcasses with a saw and sent to the refrigerator. Figure 2 shows what parts a beef carcass consists of.

Slaughtering bulls at home - video

Slaughtering bulls at home is no different from slaughtering a cow. The only difference is that an adult bull is much stronger than a cow, and serious difficulties are possible in the process. That is why it is recommended to carry out this procedure at specialized enterprises.

Bull slaughter is a psychologically difficult task, as can be seen from the video. We recommend that children and people with weak mental health not watch this video.

Bull preparation

When preparing a bull for slaughter, his diet includes more concentrates and green feed, which will improve the quality of the meat. It is recommended to send one-year-old bulls to slaughter, as they grow quickly, but do not consume as much feed as adult animals.

Before slaughter, the bull cannot be fed for 24 hours, but is given plenty to drink. Bull preparation also includes equipment special place(if the procedure will be carried out at home) and consultation with a veterinarian, who must issue the appropriate permission.

Stun

The slaughter of a bull in domestic and commercial conditions is carried out using stunning (Figure 3). To do this, use a heavy wooden hammer, which is struck firmly in the center of the forehead. You can also use an electric shock or a sharp dagger, which is used to make a deep puncture in the area of ​​​​the transition of the back of the head to the cervical vertebra.

When the animal has lost consciousness, all other procedures must be carried out quickly until the animal wakes up, so everything necessary equipment prepared in advance.

Slaughter

Once stunned, the bull will only be unconscious for a few minutes. Therefore, immediately after striking, they begin directly to slaughter. To do this, the carcass is hung up and a cross-section of the neck is made with a sharp knife, opening the blood vessels.

A clean basin is placed under the carcass to drain the blood. Bleeding lasts on average 10 minutes. After this, the carcass begins to be cut up.

Butchering a bull involves several stages. First, the skin is removed from the animal, then they begin to remove the entrails and cut up the carcass.

Skinning

Skinning and butchering of a bull is carried out in a clear sequence (Figure 4):

• The animal must first be stunned by tying it by the horns to a pole to a tree and hitting the frontal part of the head with a hammer.
• After the calf falls, the blood vessels located in the lower part of the neck are cut.
• It is necessary to place a basin at the site of the incision to collect the flowing blood. The blood drains completely in about ten minutes.
• After this, the animal must be skinned. First, the two ears are cut off at the base, and a ring-shaped incision is made around the mouth and nose. After this, you need to make an incision from the right nostril to the eye, horn and ear.
• Circular incisions are made around both horns.
• They begin to carefully remove the skin from the head, and to remove it from the body, the incision on the neck is extended to the lower lip.
• After the skin has been completely removed from the head, the head must be separated from the body (make a deep incision between the skull and the first cervical vertebra).
• For further removal, the carcass must be secured on its back, placing bars on the right and left sides.
• To make removal easy, you need to make an incision in the middle of the neck, smoothly moving to the stomach to the tail to the anus (a circular incision is also made around the anus).
• On each leg, circular incisions are made above the hooves, and small incisions are made on the inside of the leg until a cut is made in the middle of the carcass.
• The bottom of the hind legs is separated from the legs at the hocks, and the front legs are separated at the carpal joints.
• First you need to remove the skin from the leg, neck and chest, and only finally remove it from the udder, belly, back, thighs and scrotum.

When skinning, a very sharp knife is needed, but it must be used carefully so as not to damage it, as this reduces its value. Often the skin is separated from the carcass by hand, pulling it tightly, but in some cases it may be necessary to make small cuts between the meat and the skin. However, you need to make sure that no fat remains on the skin itself, since in the future it will require additional effort and time to remove it.

Cutting up the carcass and processing the skin

After skinning the front and sides of the carcass, you need to cut the chest with an ax for gutting. First of all, the trachea and esophagus should be separated (if necessary, tightly bandaged so that the contents of the stomachs do not leak out). To properly remove the internal organs and not damage the carcass, you need to do the following:

• Cut the peritoneum lengthwise and carefully remove the stomachs and intestines;
• The heart and lungs are carefully removed and placed in a clean container;
• Next, the liver and gall bladder are removed.

A wooden strip is inserted between the hock joints, by which the carcass will be hung for further processing. After the carcass is hung, the skin is finally removed from it (when removing it from the tail, you need to make a long longitudinal cut).

If there is meat or lard left on the surface, it must be removed, fold the skin in half along the ridge (with the fur facing out) and leave for several hours (to cool).

In the future, the dry salting method is used for preservation.:

• Place the skin, wool side down, on a table sprinkled with salt;
• The salt must be thoroughly rubbed into the inside of the skin and rolled up in a bag so that the wool is on top;
• Subsequently, the canned raw materials are stored at a temperature of about eight degrees. At lower temperature conditions the skin may freeze.

The skin must be preserved, as bacteria quickly grow in it, and the process of rotting begins (it becomes slippery). Recommendations for processing skins, as well as a schematic representation of a dressing machine are shown in Figure 5.

The carcass and internal organs intended for human consumption must be examined by a veterinarian. After this, the carcass is cut in half along the ridge and placed in the refrigerator for two days to mature. Next, the meat is divided into grades (for example, first: back, chest and hindquarters, second: shoulders, shoulder blade and flank, third: shanks).

After slaughter, meat can be kept fresh for two weeks in the refrigerator. It is first chopped into large pieces. It can be stored in an enamel container with a tightly closed lid. Meat should not be washed before putting it in the refrigerator. If you don’t have enough dishes, you can simply wrap the meat in oilcloth and cover it with a clean cloth.

Meat can also be stored in an icebox, but it must also be placed in some kind of container or wrapped, but not placed directly on the ice. Before consumption, meat must be gradually defrosted, since rapid defrosting loses its taste.

One of the common ways to store meat is salting. To do this, the meat is divided into parts (the front part into 10, the back part into seven) and thoroughly rubbed with salt (Figure 6). In very thick pieces, you need to make cuts and carefully cover them with salt. Next, the meat is placed in prepared oak barrels or spacious enamel dishes. The bottom of the container is covered with a thick layer of salt. The meat is placed in layers, also sprinkling each with salt. On average, 10 kg of meat requires 1 kg of salt.

After a few days, the meat will thicken and juice will release. Another layer of meat is added to the barrel and the released juice is poured over it. The top of the barrel is covered with a wooden circle and placed with a heavy object (for example, a clean stone disinfected in boiling water, which has been cooled beforehand). If desired, add black and allspice peas or bay leaves to the juice. A common storage method is smoking. A diagram of a simple smokehouse is shown in Figure 6.

Complete salting takes about a month, and salted meat can be stored for more than six months. Corned beef is stored in a cool room, most often in the basement. If the salting rules have been followed, the meat has no foreign smell or taste. detailed information about the industrial preparation of cattle meat for storage is given in the video.

It is customary to slaughter livestock in specialized places - at meat processing plants and slaughterhouses, but in some regions you can kill and butcher a domestic animal yourself. The quality of meat products depends on how correctly the animals are slaughtered. That is why an experienced slaughterer must kill cattle and cut up carcasses.

It is customary to slaughter livestock in specialized places - at meat processing plants and slaughterhouses, but in some regions you can kill and butcher a domestic animal yourself.

Thorough examination of the animal and permission from the employee veterinary clinic that meat is edible - required condition before such a procedure as slaughtering cattle. Killing an animal for the purpose of further cutting and selling the meat is under no circumstances allowed when there is a suspicion of anthrax, rabies, plague, carbuncles, fever, malignant edema, or tetanus. Typically, such animals are immediately separated from the rest and subjected to therapy; if it turns out to be ineffective, the livestock is killed for the purpose of further disposal of the corpse. The slaughter of sick animals cannot be carried out on an ordinary farm or in a private household; for this purpose there must be a special slaughterhouse or other premises intended for this purpose where infected cattle can be killed.

There are also a number of time restrictions according to which the killing of a cow or other cattle should be postponed for a while. Such restrictions include the following factors:

Preparation for slaughter

Regardless of the conditions in which cows are slaughtered - domestic or commercial - the procedure should only be performed by a professional who knows all the nuances well.

When cows are slaughtered, the first thing to do is ensure that the cow, horse or other animal intended for slaughter does not eat for 24 hours. You should also strictly limit access to water: drink can be given no later than 3 hours before slaughter. Before the slaughter procedure, the horse or cow must be washed.

An equally important role is played by the calmness of the animal, since it begins to feel approaching death long before it occurs. Therefore, places for slaughter should be prepared at some distance from the main habitat of livestock.

Self-conducting

Before slaughtering an animal, it must first be stunned. To do this, it is taken to a specially designated place, where it is tied by the horns and neck to the crossbar. After this, the animal can be stunned; usually the back of an ax or some other heavy object is used for this purpose. You need to hit extremely carefully, since you need to hit it strictly at the junction of the first vertebra and the occipital bone. As a result of the blow, the stunned animal faints. At this time, his carotid artery is cut and suspended so that the blood can flow freely.

Another way to slaughter a cow is to cut the neck blood vessels. In this case, the blow is delivered slightly below the spine behind the lower jaw.

Often at home, in addition to cutting the carotid artery, firearms are used. In this case, you need to hit exactly the point on the forehead between the eyes, located in the middle. Sometimes when using a firearm, one shot may not be enough, since the animal does not die immediately.

Industrial conditions

The slaughter of cows and other large animals on livestock farms has been put on stream. The cattle are placed on a small rectangular moving platform. Then each cow is driven into a small compartment in which all movements are quite constrained. In this case, the slaughter is carried out by means of a shot fired from a special impact pistol. The shot is fired precisely into the central part of the animal’s forehead, and it dies immediately.

Slaughter technologies (video)

Cutting process

After the animal is slaughtered, it follows. The main condition of this procedure is that the carcass of a horse, cow, or other animal must be completely drained of blood by this time. If hung correctly, this should not take more than 10-15 minutes.

The butchering of cows, goats and other animals begins with skinning. They start cutting the cow from the head; to do this, first cut off the ears, then make cuts around the nose, mouth and horns. You should especially focus on the cut around the horns, as the skin there is much thicker than on other parts. Then a cut is made between the head and the cervical vertebra, the skin is removed and the head is cut off.

The body without the head must be placed on its back and circular incisions made around the anus, joints, then longitudinal incisions are made along the legs to the belly, the lower hock joints must be cut off. Then, along the cuts, they begin to skin the legs, sides, sternum and back.

Cutting a carcass without skin begins with opening the chest with an ax blow, after which the trachea is tied up and removed along with the stomach. Then all other internal organs of the animal should be carefully removed so as not to damage the intestinal lining and gall bladder, and placed in a sterile container.

Usually a cow or other cattle is slaughtered and then butchered in a horizontal position, but if there are special goats or poles for hanging the carcass, then all cutting activities are carried out in a vertical position. The dressed animal carcass is sent to the market or meat processing plant for processing.

Let's first get rid of the illusion that animals raised for slaughter using modern methods on a farm lead a relatively prosperous existence, all their needs are fully satisfied, and when the time comes for slaughter, it happens quickly and painlessly. Today's reality is just the opposite. Now that livestock farming is largely controlled by transnational corporations and assembly-line technologies have turned the farms of the past into modern “livestock factories,” the very attitude towards animals as animate beings has degenerated into treating them as some kind of inanimate machines that process cheap feed into expensive meat. These factory farms are least concerned about the welfare of the animals, and are primarily concerned only with extracting maximum profits at minimum costs. With such a callous approach dominating today's livestock industry, is it any wonder the cruelty that animals are subjected to during the fattening process, transport to the slaughterhouse, and the actual slaughter process. In his acclaimed book Animal Liberation, Peter Singer clearly demonstrates that the number of animals abused in animal agriculture is an order of magnitude higher than any other figure in abuse statistics. In the United States alone, every year, it’s hard to believe, four billion (!) cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc. are sent to slaughter.

Breeding chickens in poultry farms

How many of us are aware that 95 percent of the millions of egg-laying chickens in the United States are in so-called “intensive” or “conveyor” housing? In practice, this usually means that four adult birds are crammed and locked for the rest of their short lives in what are commonly called “battery cages.” These cages, 30-45 centimeters in size, do not have a perch and are made of twisted wire so that the droppings fall through the floor. In the absence of hard flooring that can be scratched, birds' claws grow excessively long, intertwining and often becoming tightly stuck in the wire. This leads to steel wire crashes and eventually grows into the pads on the paws. In addition to this, the lights in the “battery cages” are turned on 18 hours a day to force the chickens to lay non-stop. On average, such a hen lays an egg every 32 hours for 14 months, after which she is slaughtered.

Today, a typical poultry farm in a “developed” country is, in practice, nothing more than a torture chamber for its inhabitants. Without any space to dig, roost, dust bath, spread their wings, or simply move, all the chickens' natural instincts are mercilessly suppressed. The stress state that is inevitable in such a situation finds its way out in aggression directed at the neighbor. Thus, stronger birds attack those that are weaker, and the latter, deprived of the right to escape, often become victims of intraspecific cannibalism.

To combat this phenomenon, chickens are “debeaked.” A mutilating procedure in which the beak - this most important organ of the bird, consisting of bone, sensitive and horny tissue - is mercilessly removed either with a hot knife or a device resembling a guillotine. Sometimes this procedure is performed twice in the life of a chicken 5.

The agony of cramped conditions and the cruelty of castration

The cramped conditions and other suffering endured by pigs, the most commonly eaten mammal in the West, are hardly inferior to those endured by chickens and roosters in factory farms. The fact that a pig is an intelligent, highly developed social animal does not in the least protect it from all the cruelties that other farm animals have to endure. Pigs kept in unacceptable, cramped conditions on pig farms become aggressive, attack neighbors, and bite off each other’s tails. Due to the fact that this negatively affects their growth, farmers use a number of preventive measures, of which tail trimming is the mildest. Pigs often spend years chained to the floor in stalls with no room for them to even turn around. Filled with a thirst for movement, they gnaw at the metal bars of the fence. All this leads to the so-called “stress syndrome of pigs”, described in one of the veterinary journals as “extreme nervous exhaustion..., stiffness in movements, skin rashes, wheezing, agitation and often sudden death.”

The fate of the calves is no better. In dark tiny stalls where they can't even stand up full height, for 16 weeks they are kept on a diet that excludes iron and rough ingredients. This destroys all their life systems, but allows them to keep their meat tender, which is so valued in veal by the consumer.

Most of us are also aware of the “traditional” cruelty meted out to farmed animals, whether they are raised the old fashioned way or with modern technology. It's no secret that most farmers dehorn, brand and castrate their cattle, but are we fully aware of the unimaginable pain all these procedures cause to animals? Leaving aside branding and cutting off horns for a moment, it is worth saying a few words about castration, which, as farmers themselves admit, is extremely painful and plunges the animal into a state of shock for a long time. In the United States, where anesthesia is not commonly used, the process is as follows: the animal is stretched on the ground and the scrotum is cut with a knife, exposing the testes. Each of them is then torn out by hand, breaking off the fastening ligaments and veins.

The horrors of transport to slaughter

Perhaps the greatest suffering animals experience is during their delivery to the slaughterhouse. This begins with the loading process, which is carried out roughly and hastily. Animals that fall off slippery loading docks in fear and confusion are often left to slowly die from their injuries. Inside the overloaded trucks, the first casualties occur from crushing and suffocation as a result of the pile-up of bodies. When a car starts moving and accelerates, often to extreme speeds, many animals become victims of “sea sickness.”

In 1906, when vans were not yet used for transporting animals, it was adopted the federal law, limiting the time spent by animals in a railway car to twenty-eight hours. After this, the animals had to be unloaded, fed, watered, and given a minimum of five hours' rest before moving on. Despite numerous attempts, a similar law has not yet been adopted that would regulate the transportation of animals by road. But this is, today, the most common type of transportation. Animals often spend not only twenty-eight and thirty-six, but also forty-eight or seventy-two hours in a truck without food or water until unloading. Climatic factors are often added to debilitating thirst and hunger; in winter - freezing wind leads to general hypothermia and local frostbite, in summer - scorching heat and direct sunlight, coupled with a lack of water, cause dehydration of the body. The suffering of calves, which only a few days ago underwent castration and weaning from their mother, is perhaps the most terrible.

Execution at the slaughterhouse

What happens to animals in a slaughterhouse is even more terrible than all the pains of keeping, transporting and other terrible aspects of animal husbandry combined. The process is very colorfully described in Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, which documents the slaughterhouses of Chicago:

“At that same moment, a terrible, soul-chilling screech slashed across the ears... followed by another, even louder and agonizing, because once the hog has set off on this journey, he will never return back. Meanwhile, as if unaware of anything that was happening, the people below scurried back and forth, doing their routine work. Neither the squeal of the slaughtered pigs nor the tears of the visitors touched them; One by one, they hung the pigs on hooks and, with a precise, quick movement, cut their throats. A whole string of agonizing, writhing animals was formed, the screeching gradually faded away along with the blood gushing from the throat, then cut the air again, and in the end, the carcasses disappeared with a splash into a huge vat of boiling water.

They had done nothing in their lives to deserve such an end, and this only added humiliation to the torment: the situation here was staged in such a way that they were tossed back and forth in a cool, aloof manner, without the slightest hint of guilt, without a single tear " 6

You can argue that The Jungle was written many years ago, and therefore now things are much more humane. As for the slaughter of pigs, let's take the testimony of an eyewitness - a visitor to one slaughterhouse in our time. This man is a writer who himself grew up on a farm and from childhood was accustomed to seeing animals killed. So, in his opinion, the pain and horror experienced by pigs being led to slaughter have not changed at all since the time of Sinclair:

“The corral narrowed like a funnel; the drivers behind drove the pigs forward until they, one by one, climbed onto the crawling conveyor... They squealed heart-rendingly, being on such a device for the first time, smelling the smells of what awaited them ahead. I don’t want to overdramatize everything that’s happening, I’m sure you’ve heard about this more than once. I just want to assure you that it was a very frightening experience for me to see their horror, the countless number that passed by me. It all must have reminded me of what no one wants to be reminded of anymore - all those crowds, death marches, massacres and genocides.” 7

One priest, who watched a flock of sheep being led to the slaughter, wrote: “The smells, the cries of agony and the sound of the murder taking place inside were disgusting... Lambs were slaughtered right in front of their mothers. I watched as the animals were driven to the immediate place of slaughter, where they, already sensing their fate, went crazy with fear.” 8 This was written in 1975, seventeen years after the passage of the federal Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, which sought to eliminate unnecessary cruelty in slaughterhouses.

So how does slaughter take place? In a nutshell: the animal is first rendered unconscious and then slaughtered; death occurs from loss of blood. Currently, three methods are mainly used for these purposes: stunning with a sledgehammer or an ax, stunning with the so-called “blank gun” and electric shock. When animals approach directly to the place of slaughter, they sense what awaits them ahead and begin to resist. To force them into the tiny pens, workers use exposed electrodes or clubs. So, in the first case, the animal is given a powerful blow to the head with a sledgehammer, which breaks its skull and renders it unconscious. If the animal is large and strong, and the victim begins to thrash about in agony, the matter will not end with one blow. If the unfortunate creature, trying to escape, jerks its head at the moment of the blow, then the hammer can knock out its eye or crush its nose.

In the case of a dummy gun, the barrel of this large weapon is placed against the forehead of an animal locked in a cramped stall. There are two types of such pistols. The first one shoots a blank from the barrel with enormous force, causing concussion of the animal. The second shoots a blank, which, having pierced the skull, penetrates inside and is then drawn back into the pistol. A steel rod is immediately thrust into the hole formed and rotated several times to destroy the nerve centers in the brain.

The most humane and least painful way to stun an animal before death is, perhaps, electric shock. The bare electrodes are attached to the tips of a special spear. It is brought to the animal’s head, just below the ear. An electrical discharge is sent through the victim's brain, paralyzing and stunning him. The animal must then be hastily slaughtered and bled, for in seven minutes it may come to its senses 9 .

Ritual murder

By some evil irony, it was the existence of various religious rites and rituals that left creepy loopholes in the laws on the humane treatment of animals during slaughter. The dietary dogma of Orthodox Jews and Muslims requires that the animal be “healthy and active” at the time of slaughter (no doubt for the practical purpose of protecting oneself from stale meat and the meat of diseased animals). Orthodox believers interpret this provision differently: the animal must remain conscious until the very moment of physical death, which, according to the norms of the ritual, occurs from a single stab in the jugular vein and trachea. The inevitable cruelty of slaughter carried out under such rules reaches its apogee in the United States, where federal laws on this matter must also be observed. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 states that, for sanitary reasons, an animal being slaughtered cannot come into contact with the blood of a previously slaughtered animal. To ensure compliance with this standard and to maintain kosher requirements, the animal is slaughtered hanging on a conveyor chain instead of lying on the floor of the slaughterhouse.

“Instead of falling stunned and dead on the slaughterhouse floor, animals slaughtered in the United States according to ritual rules, tied by the hind leg, rise into the air and hang there, fully conscious, upside down, on a conveyor belt for two to five minutes... The animal, hanging upside down, with twisted joints and often a broken leg, writhes furiously in pain and terror, so that one has to catch it by the neck or insert staples into the nostrils in order to allow the executioner to take its life with one blow of the knife, as prescribed by religious norms.” . 10

Even among Orthodox rabbis, there is ongoing debate about whether animals must remain conscious when their throats are cut for strict religious observance. In some countries, including Sweden, rabbis have passed legislation requiring animals to be stunned before slaughter, regardless of religious norms (Singer, p. 163). All over the world, Jewish voices are heard protesting against this immoral, disgusting practice of ritually killing animals without first stunning them. It should also be noted that even if the introduction of a ban on ritual slaughter of livestock in the forms that it currently exists in the United States may entail the refusal of many Orthodox members of the Jewish and Muslim communities from eating meat, this in no way will force them to violate any commandments, for none of these religions contains an imperative norm for its followers to eat meat.

Complicity of meat consumers in the killing of animals

Since few people are familiar with modern technologies intensive livestock farming, and even fewer people have been to a slaughterhouse or heard the sounds coming from there (“Any person who has ever heard the dying cry of a slaughtered animal,” said Confucius, “will never be able to eat its flesh again!”), few people associate the ham they eat , veal, steak with a living, suffering creature. Some people say, “Because I am against causing suffering to animals, I only eat meat from animals that have not been subjected to intensive farming methods or inhumane slaughter.” In other words, it is considered quite normal to “empathize, followed by eating the object of empathy.” Be that as it may, it is quite obvious that in practice it is impossible to breed animals for slaughter in industrial scale and at the same time do without cruelty. Even if intensive livestock farming techniques are completely abandoned, traditional farming practices also include procedures such as castration, weaning of young animals from their mother, branding, transport to the slaughterhouse and, finally, the slaughterhouse itself. Can anyone honestly say that they fully care about the welfare of animals, about their inalienable rights, while continuing to eat them for dinner? Can someone who eats flesh, thereby provoking and indirectly participating in the torture and murder of another living being with the sole purpose of satisfying his gastronomic passion for a certain type of food, deny that by his actions he determines the unenviable fate of this creature? “Anyone who feels this way must certainly work hard to lull their conscience and convince themselves that there is no need to extend their concern for animals to the point of not eating them,” Singer points out. Be that as it may, only by refusing to eat meat can you actually demonstrate to yourself and others that your concern for animals is genuine and goes beyond empty words.

“Until we completely give up meat, each of us makes a personal contribution to the existence, growth and prosperity of intensive livestock farming and all other inhumane methods of raising animals for slaughter.” eleven

In the United States alone, there are an estimated seven to ten million meat-free people, nearly three times as many as a generation ago. 12 It is absolutely obvious that for the vast majority, vegetarianism is a protest against the killing of defenseless animals and a choice in favor of a more humane diet. How can those who themselves seek liberation from suffering indirectly cause the torture and death of other living beings by constantly eating their flesh and thereby creating and maintaining a demand that can only be satisfied through incessant slaughter?

In his book, Jean Christophe Romain Rolland eloquently condemns this gross injustice towards animals:

“For a free-thinking person whose mind is open, observing the suffering of animals is somehow even more unbearable than observing the suffering of people. After all, in relation to a person, at least the truth is generally accepted and no one disputes that suffering is evil, and the one who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are aimlessly destroyed every single day without the slightest regret, without a shadow of remorse. If anyone talks about this, they will immediately laugh at him. But this is a crime for which there is no justification. This alone is a sufficient cause of all human suffering. This crime cries out for vengeance and is a curse on the entire human race. If God exists and allows this, vengeance awaits him too. If there is no justice for the weak and defenseless, for the poor creatures sacrificed to man on the altar, then there is no such thing as goodness, no such thing as justice.”

At this point, many readers may have a question: “Why all these worries about the fate of animals, when there are millions of hungry men, women, children and thousands of representatives of the human race who are cruelly tortured and killed? Wouldn’t it be more correct to direct all efforts and resources to eradicate the suffering of people, rather than animals?” But why should we separate these two issues as if they were a matter of priority? After all, does giving up eating meat while working to improve human society really require incredible effort? In the past, such outstanding people as Gandhi, Tolstoy, Shaw, Upton Sinclair, Romain Rolland dedicated their lives to improving the situation of oppressed people in their very different societies. At the same time, they all sharply criticized the senseless destruction of animals at the mere whim of the human stomach. Their concern for humane treatment of our smaller brothers in no way detracted from the background or interfered with their efforts in the field of struggle for human rights and freedoms. 13

Meat consumption and human violence

The fact that there is a causal connection between the ongoing slaughter of millions of cows, pigs, birds, sheep, not to mention whales, dolphins, seals, and mass cruelty, torture and murder among people should not raise even a shadow of doubt in those who who understands the interconnection of all things and the inevitability of karmic retribution for the actions we have committed. By consuming meat, we allow this bacchanalia to continue and are its co-perpetrators. And in the light of the law of cause and effect, we are also “co-victims.” Is it possible, by devouring the corpses of “innocently killed” animals, saturated with the energies of pain and horror they experienced at the moment of death, to avoid the fate of becoming evil, aggressive, and provoking violence within oneself and without? “As long as we ourselves are walking graves for the corpses of animals,” asks Bernard Shaw, “how can we expect any improvement in the state of affairs on Earth?” This rhetorical question is echoed in an old Chinese poem whose imagery provides insight into the negative karma created by killing animals:

The slaughter of domestic animals is an unpleasant but inevitable process for any farmer. Many farmers prefer to take their animals to a slaughterhouse, where they will be killed quickly and in the most humane way possible. But if this is not possible, you have to cope with the slaughter yourself. In addition to strong nerves, knowledge of theoretical material is necessary. If you approach the slaughter without preparation, you can spend more than one hour. In this article we will tell you how to kill animals for meat, avoiding unpleasant complications in the process.

Killing a bull is not easy. The main problems are the large size of the artiodactyl, its remarkable strength and endurance. Few people manage to quickly kill a bull without experience. Therefore, beginners “suffer” with the animal for a long time, receiving a strong psychological burden from this. It is recommended to take the bull to a slaughterhouse, to a factory, where experienced specialists will cope with the task much faster and more humanely. If you decide to slaughter a bull yourself, then you must carefully follow all 3 stages of this difficult process.

Preparation of the artiodactyl

Before the slaughter procedure, care must be taken to properly prepare the animal. The process includes a number of required factors:

Important! Unlike poultry, there is no need to limit artiodactyls in food. Complete cleansing of the intestines will still not happen. Fasting will only make the bull more aggressive by increasing hormone production.

Stun

Stunning is a mandatory step. Humanism is not the only reason for stunning; there are others. Thus, a awake and active bull at the moment of slaughter produces great amount hormone. The hormone makes meat less tasty and soft, and its large proportions can even harm the human body.

They stun large animals with a blow to the head with a large stick or the butt of an ax. The blow should be strong and sharp so that you don’t have to hit it several times. If you are concerned about the animal's experiences, you need to try to ensure that the first blow plunges it into unconsciousness. Then the bull will not feel anything and, in fact, will simply fall asleep.

Slaughter

You need to start the main stage immediately as soon as the artiodactyl has lost consciousness. After 3-4 minutes the individual may come to its senses, and this should not be allowed. It is necessary to act quickly according to a clear algorithm.

Step	Description	Photo
1	The animal's neck must be cut at the bottom. The cut should be neat and transverse. The goal is to open the blood vessels. It is advisable to do this the first time, maximum the second.
2	After making sure that all the vessels are open, the carcass should be left cut side down to drain the blood. This usually takes 10 to 15 minutes.
3	It would not hurt to collect the leaked blood in special containers in order to feed pigs and poultry in the future.
4	After complete bleeding, the carcass can be dragged to the place for cutting.

Important! The bull must be tied before slaughter. The same goes for cows. In general, the technique for slaughtering males and females is absolutely identical.

How to properly butcher a bull?

Cutting is a rather complicated process. The main difficulty lies in the large size of the carcass. Large size means a lot of work, and if a person does it alone, he will have to spend the whole day. The cutting process consists of 2 main stages. Next we will look at each of them in detail.

Skinning

Skinning is the initial stage of cutting up an artiodactyl carcass. It is necessary to make further operations simpler and more convenient. Skinning occurs in a certain order.

1. You should start from the head.

   

   When looking at a bull's head, it's easy to imagine the line of the cut through the eye

   Step	Description
   1	It is necessary to trim the bull's ears to the very base. You also need to cut the skin near the nostrils and lips, making ring-shaped cuts.
   2	You need to make a cut from the bull's nose to one of the horns. Usually the right nostril is chosen and, accordingly, the right horn. The incision should go across the eye. From the horn you should move the knife along the forehead to another horn, and from that to the place left when cutting off the ear. You need to make ring-shaped cuts around each of the horns.
   3	Now you can free a significant portion of the head from the skin.
   4	After removing the skin from part of the head, it is necessary to make a cut from the bottom wound on the neck to the lip (lower). This will remove the scalp completely.
   5	At the end, the head of the artiodactyl should be separated from the carcass. The easiest way to do this is by making an incision between the occipital bone and the top vertebra of the neck.

   

   Important! If the skin has not completely separated after the above procedures, it must be trimmed from the inside with a knife.

2. Now you can move on to the body of the bull. To make skin removal easier, the body must be turned upside down.

Important! Remove skin from the inner thighs, sides, and groin with extreme caution. In these areas of the carcass, the skin is most vulnerable, so you need to cut it not with the tip of a knife, but with a whole blade. The skin must be pulled tightly by hand before making the cut.

Butchering the carcass

Before you start cutting, you need to fold the skin in half along the ridge line. The fur should be out. The skin should be left for 2-3 hours to cool. While it cools, you can cut the carcass. When cutting, the following order is applied.

This is where the cutting of meat ends, but the internal organs still remain. Usually they are removed in stages during cutting. It is recommended to remove the stomach and intestines first, immediately rinsing them under running water. You should call your veterinarian home to evaluate the carcass for suitability or unsuitability for consumption. He must also check the organs, so that by the time he arrives, all offal must be removed.

After completing all these operations, take the cooled skin and salt it. The carcass is washed and hung in a cool place for several days. This is where intact tendons are important.

Video - How to slaughter a bull?

How to slaughter a horse at home?

Before you decide to slaughter a horse, you must ensure that its meat is suitable for human consumption. The meat of the following breeds is absolutely edible:

• Kazakh;
• Novoaltaiskaya;
• Yakut

If you eat the meat of a horse of another breed, nothing bad will happen. But there is no point in this, since the meat of other horses is frankly tasteless. But in the listed breeds it is marbled and juicy. Horses of these breeds have a long, massive body, but short legs. With a weight of 400 kg, a horse produces up to 250 kg of pure meat.

Features of slaughtering a horse at home.

Thus, the main difference is the need to equip a suitable site. Many farmers slaughter horses on the ground, which causes the meat to become less tasty, darker due to retained blood, and poor quality due to stomach waste. Maintaining basic sanitation is a critical part of horse slaughter.

How to slaughter a pig? Effective methods

Many farmers, especially beginners, cannot determine the exact time of slaughter of a piglet or an adult boar. The optimal weight before this procedure also raises questions. General recommendations are as follows: the approximate weight of an adult pig suitable for slaughter is 110 kg, about 75 of which is pure meat and lard. Piglets are raised to 50-60 kg.

Important factors determining the success of the slaughter procedure:

• Feeding the pig must be stopped 12 hours before the procedure so that it cleanses its intestines (besides, it will be easy to lure it out with food);
• You should not shout at the animal, kick it or push it, so as not to cause stress;
• immediately before slaughter, the pig must be washed (the carcass will be easier to process, the meat will be of higher quality);
• the place for the procedure must be chosen in such a way that it is easy to wash and tidy;
• The container for collecting blood is prepared in advance, because the blood most often goes to the sausage.

Neck piercing

To implement this method you need 2 people. The first one secures the individual by the legs, the second one stabs the neck. The knife should be long and thin, the blade length should be at least 30 centimeters.

Important! The advantage of the method lies in its virtual painlessness. The pig will feel the injection, but after a few seconds he will forget it and completely relax.

Heart puncture

This is the most famous method of slaughtering pigs. 3 people must participate. 2 may be enough, but the piercer must be experienced. If he is doing this for the first time, then it is better to have more than one assistant.

Heart puncture is a common method of slaughter

Important! A heart piercing is considered relatively painful compared to a neck piercing. But the procedure ends in a few seconds, so this method can also be considered humane.

Stun gun

This method is considered to be not the most humane. But for the slaughter of large wild boars it is sometimes indispensable. Even 3 adult men cannot always cope with a large, strong animal, and it is simply impossible to do it alone. The principle of operation is extremely simple. The pig is stunned with a stun gun and the carotid artery is cut while it is unconscious. As an option, sometimes a puncture is made in the heart.

Firearms

This method is not recommended, as it is inhumane and inconvenient. If the pig senses danger, it will run and be difficult to hit. Trying to kill a pig can injure and cause suffering, and there is a risk of damaging other animals or property. Therefore, the method is considered unsuccessful. But when executed correctly, its effectiveness cannot be denied.

How to slaughter poultry?

Poultry slaughter is a procedure quite different from animal slaughter. The preparation of the animal and the “working space” is no different, and the slaughter process itself is completely different. There are 2 basic principles for performing this simple procedure.

External principle

The procedure for implementing this principle.

Internal principle

This principle is implemented as follows.

Piercing the cerebellum is important for proper slaughter

Due to the need to insert scissors into the beak, this method is difficult to use with chickens, quail and other small birds. It is inconvenient to use small scissors, and large ones simply do not fit into the bird’s throat. Therefore, for small birds, the second principle of slaughter will be preferable.

Important! For large birds, the internal method is considered preferable. For small ones - external. But people often choose a principle that is more convenient for them to implement.

How do they kill rabbits for meat?

To get a high-quality skin from a rabbit, you need to wait for a complete change of hair. If you plan to use only meat, then you can cut the rabbit at any time of the year. As soon as he looks sufficiently well-fed, the necessary procedure can be carried out.

General procedure.

How are sheep slaughtered?

When slaughtering sheep, it is important to follow certain technology and sanitary standards. This directly affects the taste and quality of the meat. The procedure is performed according to an algorithm.

Important! A sheep, like any animal, must be shown to a veterinarian before slaughter. Violation of this rule can provoke meat poisoning and cause dangerous diseases.

How to slaughter goats for meat?

The principle of slaughtering a goat is close to a similar procedure for other ungulates. General algorithm looks like this.

The next steps are skinning and butchering the carcass. They do not differ from similar procedures for a bull, described in detail in the first part of the article. Let us only note that the esophagus must be tied with a cord first, preventing the leakage of waste products.

Available for different pets different ways slaughter Each has its own rules and characteristics. One thing unites them general condition: it is necessary to approach the process with knowledge of the matter, so as not to cause unnecessary suffering to living creatures and not to complicate the task for yourself. By following simple rules, a farmer can even handle cattle on his own. But if he does not feel confident in his abilities, then he should use the services of a factory or slaughterhouse.

A cow is often kept for milk, while a bull is fattened specifically for meat. Sooner or later the animals will have to be slaughtered. How does cutting occur, what is the best way to do it, is special preparation needed?

Sooner or later the cow will have to be slaughtered for meat

Preparing the animal

Cutting any animal is a difficult and unpleasant task. People with weak psyches should not do this on their own; it is better to entrust it to professionals. Killing a cow, especially a bull, is a necessity, otherwise there would be no point in keeping these animals.

To slaughter a bull, it is advisable to obtain permission from veterinarian. He will examine the animal and tell you if it has any diseases. To issue a permit, he must know everything about the vaccinations given. So, if cutting is done after they have been vaccinated against anthrax, the doctor will prohibit slaughtering, because Animal meat is dangerous to health. Permission will be received only after 2-3 weeks.

If you are planning to slaughter a bull or cow for meat, you cannot feed them for the whole day. You can give her water, you even need to. Then the animal’s body will be cleansed of feces. Slaughtering animals can be very stressful for them. Often they sense what is about to happen and begin to grunt and resist. Therefore, preparations for slaughter should be carried out away from them.

When to slaughter a bull

If you want to slaughter a bull, you need to fatten it. In summer, feed not only succulent food, but also concentrates. In winter, do not forget about compound feed. Bulls are slaughtered in the first year of their life, when they gain weight. But if the calf was born in the spring, it is left for the summer so that it can gain weight. If the bull has not been castrated, meat growth occurs quickly.

One-year-old bulls go to slaughter

How to slaughter an animal

The procedure itself

Cutting required preliminary preparation. You need to prepare:

• carcass bar;
• hook;
• rope;
• ax or hammer;
• knife for cutting carcasses;
• towels and a basin of water;
• clean oilcloth for the skin.

Animals are taken to a specially designated place for slaughter.

1. First, the animal is tied by the neck or horns.
2. Before killing cows and bulls, they must be stunned. To do this, you need to find a place on the head, at the occipital bone and cervical vertebra, where they connect, and hit it with a hammer or the butt of an ax.
3. When the animal falls, its neck, or rather its artery, is cut with a knife.
4. The slaughter is complete. All that remains is to throw it onto the prepared crossbar and remove the skin. But first you need to wait until all the blood has drained.

Killing a cow is an unpleasant thing, but for some it is common, because... all the counters are filled with meat. There is no other way to obtain this product, so killing animals has become the norm.

Before slaughter, the calf must be tied

How to skin

Remove the skin from the head, using a knife to make a line that stretches along the neck. But before that you need to remove your ears. Then a cut is made with a knife from the left horn to the nostril, the same as in a bull or a cow on the back side, but it is extended to the upper lip. Once the skin is removed from the head, it must be cut off. Separating it from the main carcass is the most difficult thing.

The carcass lies on a flat surface. An incision is made from the chest to the anus. The skin is separated separately on the legs.

As soon as the slaughter and other work is completed, the skin is placed on oilcloth and generously sprinkled with salt. After this, they are transferred to a cold place, leaving the fur side up. If the work is done incorrectly, after some time it will smell bad or turn to stone. If you didn’t skimp on salt, in a week it will be ready for transportation. The slaughter of the cow is completed.

Cow hide is a profitable commodity

Carcass cutting

If you decide to slaughter cows or bulls, learn how to properly cut a carcass. Cows and bulls are slaughtered for meat, so it needs to be properly sorted and prepared for sale.

1. Butchering begins with a hole being made in the chest of the bull or cow. It is necessary to remove the insides. As soon as the cutting is completed, you need to immediately remove the internal organs, trying to keep it within 45 minutes. If the cutting is done later, this will be more difficult.
2. The esophagus is tied with a rope. If its contents spill onto the meat, its color and smell will be unpleasant.
3. Locate and remove the gallbladder, which is not easily visible. If the bile has spread, it should be immediately removed with a rag and wiped with a solution of potassium permanganate. Otherwise, the taste of the meat will change.
4. Separate the udder.
5. If the animal is well-fed, then there will be layers of fat inside. It is separated and folded separately.
6. The carcass is divided into parts. The larger the pieces, the longer they last. The cutting is complete.

Scheme of cutting a cow with the names of different parts of the carcass

If the animal died on its own

No matter how difficult it is to cut, no matter how much trouble, effort and time slaughtering an animal requires, it is much worse if it dies on its own. In this case, the autopsy of the cow or the autopsy of the calf is performed by a pathologist. This is necessary in order to find out why the animal died.

Having examined the dead cow or bull, he confirms or refutes the previously made diagnosis. All data obtained after the study are entered into the protocol.

This protocol consists of 3 parts: introduction, description and conclusion. The protocol must begin with an introduction. There they write the type of animal, its age. They also indicate the gender, color, weight, who it belongs to, the date and those who conducted the research. Afterwards, the conditions of keeping the animal, treatment, etc. are entered into the protocol. The main part is a record of changes in the tissues and organs of bulls and cows. The protocol ends with a pathological diagnosis and a conclusion indicating why the animal died. The autopsy report is a special document that is signed by the veterinarian and paramedic and stored in a special book.

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