2006 Restaurant Animal Welfare Audits of Federally Inspected Beef, Pork, and Veal Slaughter Plants in the U.S.
Dr. Temple Grandin
Department of Animal Science
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado U.S.A.
Beef and Veal Plants
A total of 46 beef plants and 3 veal plants were audited in 2006. Fifty six percent had an excellent stunning score of 99% or more of the cattle rendered insensible with one shot from a captive bolt (Table 1). Ninety five percent of the beef plants passed the audit on both stunning and insensibility. Unfortunately two plants had animals that had a partial return to sensibility. In both plants the animal was insensible before dressing procedures started. At one plant, the problem was due to poor maintenance and neglect of the stunners. In the other, there was no obvious problem. All the veal plants passed on stunning and insensibility.
Ninety five percent of the plants passed the vocalization audit (Table 2). There were three kosher plants. One of them had a very good 2% score and the other two failed with scores of 10% and 9%. One failure was due to operator error and was easy to correct and the other was due to several different things that I fixed when I visited the plant. After fixing these items, the score dropped to 1.5%. Ninety eight percent of the plants passed on electric prod use (Table 3). One plant failed due to many cattle balking and backing up.
Case study of simple improvements that enabled two of the plants that failed on either vocalization or electric prod use to pass
Plant 1 - Modifications to reduce a 10% vocalization score to 1.5% in a kosher beef plant
- Weld steel rods to the floor of the kosher box to make it non-slip
- Weld loose steel panels in the leadup chute to stop clattering
- Eliminate a pinch point on the tailgate that pinched the animal's tail
- Modify head holder
- Change a hydraulic valve that controlled the tailgate to eliminate sudden jerky motion and provide smoother motion
Plant 2 - Modifications to reduce the number of cattle backing up to reduce usage of the electric prod
- Change ventilation so that air stopped blowing into the faces of approaching cattle at the restrainer entrance. Air movement at the entrance to a stun box or restrainer should be still. This was the most important change.
- Install a curtain made from conveyor belting on the exit end of the restrainer to prevent the cattle from seeing moving equipment and people in the plant.
- Train the shackler to stand back and stop looking up at the cattle.
- Eliminate flapping cloth near the restrainer entrance.
- Install a shield to block bright sun that shined directly on the restrainer entrance.
In both of these plants, fixing five small things provided a big reduction in vocalization and electric prod use.
Table 4 shows the data for cattle falling down. Ninety six percent of the plants passed. One plant failed due to a slick floor on the unloading ramp and in the other cattle fell in the stun box. They had a score of 11% which is a serious problem.
Table 5 shows the scores for all five of the AMI Core Criteria for three veal plants. All three of the plants passed on all of the criteria. The veal plants are to be commended for a good job in 2006.
Pork Plants
A total of 20 pork plants were audited in 2006. All 20 of them passed on correct stunner placement (Table 6). Hotwanding data was available for only seven plants and they all passed (Table 7). Table 8 has data on vocalization in the restrainer in 10 plants. they all passed. One of the plants processed sows and they had a passing score of 5%.
The pork plants did a really good job on preventing pigs from falling in 2006. Eighty eight percent of the plants had an excellent score of 0% falling (Table 9). Data on electric prod usage was obtained in 27 plants (Table 10). All of the plants passed.
Problem Areas
Some of the worst problems I observed in 2006 were due to conditions caused by the producer. At one plant, heavy 275 lb (125 kg) pigs were weak and had difficulty waling from the stockyard to the stunner. Problems with weak pigs were reduced after plant management worked with producers to reduce the usage of ractopamine (Paglean). At three beef plants I observed problems with lame heat stressed cattle. Brahman cross cattle that are normally heat tolerant were panting. In some pens of cattle, up to 25% of the animals were sore footed even though they had normal looking feet. I am concerned about pushing the animal's biology too hard to get rapid growth.
Table 1: Captive bolt stunning in 43* beef plants in the U.S. during 2006
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 99% to 100% |
24 |
56% |
| Acceptable: 95% to 98% |
19 |
44% |
| Not Acceptable: 90% to 94% |
0 |
0% |
| Serious Problem: below 90% |
0 |
0% |
- * Three kosher plants were not included.
- NOTE: Two plants had partial return to sensibility on the bleed rail. At one plant the problem was a total lack of maintenance of the stunner. Ninety five percent of the plants rendered all of the cattle insensible. At the two plants with the partial return to sensibility, the animals were restunned and rendered insensible before dressing procedures started.
Table 2: Percentage of cattle vocalizing in 46* beef plants in the U.S. during 2006
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% to 1% |
28 |
56% |
| Acceptable: 2% to 3% |
16 |
35% |
| Not Acceptable: 4% to 10% |
2 |
5% |
| Serious Problem: over 10% |
0 |
0% |
- * Three kosher plants included.
Table 3: Electric prod use in 44* beef plants in the U.S. during 2006
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% |
12 |
27% |
| Excellent: Less than 5% |
13 |
30% |
| Acceptable: 6% to 25% |
18 |
41% |
| Not Acceptable: 26% to 49% |
1 |
2% |
| Serious Problem: over 50% |
0 |
0% |
- * There was missing data for electric prod use in two plants.
Table 4: Percentage of cattle falling in 44* beef plants in the U.S. during 2006
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% |
40 |
91% |
| Acceptable: 1% |
2 |
5% |
| Not Acceptable: 2% to 5% |
1 |
2% |
| Serious Problem: over 5% |
1 |
2% |
- * There was missing data for electric prod use in two plants.
Table 5: Audit scores for three veal plants
|
Stunning |
Insensibility |
Vocalization |
Electric Prods |
Falls |
| Plant 1 |
98% |
100% |
0% |
0% |
0% |
| Plant 2 |
100% |
100% |
0% |
0% |
0% |
| Plant 3 |
100% |
100% |
0% |
0% |
0% |
- NOTE: All 3 plants passed on all five core criteria.
Table 6: Correct placement of the electric stunner in 20 U.S. pork plants
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 100% correct wand placement |
13 |
65% |
| Acceptable: 99% correct wand placement |
7 |
35% |
| Not Acceptable: 98% or less correct wand placement |
0 |
0% |
Table 7: Hotwanding errors in 7 U.S. pork plants
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% hotwanding |
5 |
71% |
| Acceptable: 1% hotwanding |
2 |
29% |
| Not Acceptable: 2% to 4% hotwanding |
0 |
0% |
| Serious Problem: more than 5% hotwanding |
0 |
0% |
- NOTE: The number of plants with hotwanding data is less than the number of plants with electric stunning because one of the auditing groups did not collect hotwanding data.
Table 8: Vocalization in the V Conveyor Restrainer in 10 U.S. pork plants
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% vocalization |
4 |
40% |
| Acceptable: 1% to 5% vocalization |
6 |
60% |
| Not Acceptable: 6% to 10% vocalization |
0 |
0% |
| Serious Problem: more than 10% vocalization |
0 |
0% |
- NOTE: Vocalization data was missing in many plants because one auditing agency did not collect the data.
- NOTE: The one sow plant had a score of 5%.
Table 9: Percentage of pigs falling in 26* U.S. pork plants
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% falling |
23 |
88% |
| Acceptable: 1% falling |
3 |
12% |
| Not Acceptable: 2% to 4% falling |
0 |
0% |
| Serious Problem: more than 5% falling |
0 |
0% |
- NOTE: In one plant the falling score was not recorded.
Table 10: Percentage of pigs moved with an electric prod in 27 U.S. pork plants
|
No Plants |
Percentage of Plants |
| Excellent: 0% |
6 |
22% |
| Excellent: 1% to 5% |
5 |
19% |
| Acceptable: 6% to 25% |
16 |
59% |
| Not Acceptable: 26% to 49% |
0 |
0% |
| Serious Problem: over 50% |
0 |
0% |
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