Animal Welfare and Food Safety When Slaughtering Cattle Using the Gunshot Method

Abstract

Transporting cattle from farm to slaughterhouse is often stressful for the animal, which can impair the meat quality. With the gunshot method, the animal is stunned with a rifle shot while together with familiar herd members in their home environment, exsanguinated and transported to a nearby slaughterhouse. Aiming to assess the consequences for animal welfare and food safety, 20 Hereford steers aged 18–54 months were shot with .22 Magnum ammunition from an elevated position and distance of 6–12 m. Each time, only one out of four to seven animals in a 16 × 10 m corral was shot. Dressing was done on farm. Based on the animals’ behaviour and blood concentrations of cortisol, glucose and lactate, stress levels before shooting were low. Eleven animals were deeply stunned, the consciousness of seven others was ambiguous, and two were poorly stunned. Two animals were reshot. The bleed-out was satisfactory for all animals, and little or no faecal contamination was found on the carcasses. We conclude that the gunshot method is applicable to large beef steers while maintaining a satisfactory level of animal welfare and food safety, provided that the necessary conditions can be attained.

Animal Welfare during Transport and Slaughter of Cattle: A Systematic Review of Studies in the European Legal Framework

“…Stress hormones, such as cortisol, can provide information on both acute (e.g., measured in saliva or blood) and chronic (measured in hair) stress [ 49 , 50 ]. The glucocorticoid cortisol is secreted by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and can activate catabolic metabolic processes [ 51 ].…”

Investigating the impact of pre-slaughter management factors on indicators of fed beef cattle welfare – a scoping review

“…Alternative slaughter was identified as a process that followed religious slaughter laws, used a head restraint during stunning, performed electrical stunning, or slaughtered and processed animals outside of a permanent facility. Ten papers were identified as studies categorized as alternative slaughter: religious slaughter (n = 6; Bourguet et al, 2011;Ahsan et al, 2014;Bozzo et al, 2018;Alam et al, 2020;Abubakar et al, 2021;Imlan et al, 2021), electrical stunning followed by exsanguination (n = 1; Minka and Ayo, 2007), on-farm and mobile slaughter (n = 2; Hultgren et al, 2020;Hultgren et al, 2022) and conventional slaughter with a head restraint (n = 1; Ewbank et al, 1992).…”

“…On-farm and mobile slaughter has become an area of interest, mainly due to the stress transportation induces on cattle which is avoided in on-farm scenarios, and it is anticipated that more research will be conducted in this area as this type of processing becomes more popular (Johnson et al, 2012;Friedrich et al, 2015;Hultgren et al, 2020;Hultgren et al, 2022). Hultgren et al (2022) studied slaughter by rifle from a distance (ranging 6-12 m), focusing on blood parameters and pre and post slaughter behaviors (e.g., walking, exploring, sniffing, and vocalizing) as indicators of stress. Hultgren et al (2020) conducted a study to assess the stress related behaviors in a mobile slaughter scenario compared to a stationary slaughter plant.…”