WO2003101204A1

WO2003101204A1 - Improved method of handling livestock before, during and after slaughter

Info

Publication number: WO2003101204A1
Application number: PCT/NZ2003/000108
Authority: WO
Inventors: John Roy Craig
Original assignee: John Roy Craig
Priority date: 2002-05-31
Filing date: 2003-05-29
Publication date: 2003-12-11
Also published as: NZ519296A; AU2003228183A1

Abstract

Method of handling an animal immediately before, during and immediately after slaughter includes the steps of: stunning the animal without any preliminary washing or cleaning; removing substantially all the wool or hair from selected areas of the animal, the selected areas being those where the carcass needs to be cut to complete the dressing of the carcass; bleeding the stunned animal either before or after removing the wool or hair from selected areas; cutting only through the selected areas of the carcass to complete the dressing of the carcass.

Description

IMPROVED METHOD OF HANDLING LIVESTOCK BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER SLAUGHTER

Technical Field

The present invention relates to an improved method of handling and preparing livestock immediately before, during and immediately after, slaughter. The invention is described with a special reference to sheep, but in fact is suitable for use also with other livestock normally slaughtered in an abattoir, e.g. cattle, pigs, goats, deer.

Background Art

At present, sheep arriving at an abattoir often are unshorn, although some abattoirs request that the sheep are shorn over the areas of their skin where the opening knife cuts will be made at the start of the dressing process, i.e. over the brisket, belly, leg, crutch and anal areas. However, even when the animals have been shorn as requested, this may make the problem of carcass contamination worse, since once the animals have been shorn, any fresh soiling is at or close to skin level; the warmth of the skin means that any soiling is dried hard. Caked on dirt of this type is extremely difficult to remove, even with repeated showering, and can therefore create hygiene problems because the dirt from the skin gets on to the carcass after slaughter. Any dirt on the carcass itself has to be removed later, by visual inspection followed by trimming. This increases processing costs, and there is always the risk that some carcass contamination will remain undetected and cause spoilage of the carcass.

Any animal being trucked to the abattoir is supposed to be "empty", (i.e. left unfed for a minimum of 12 hours) before being transported. This requirement is supposed to cut down on soiling during transport, but in fact is not particularly effective in achieving this and has the substantial drawback of distressing and weakening the animals.

After the animals arrive at the abattoir, they are washed in a shower and sometimes in a swim through bath as well. The washing requires large volumes of water and in general is ineffective in removing any caked-on mud or faecal matter. The washing process can be very distressing for the animals, especially for sheep, whose wool normally protects them from being soaked. Sometimes, animals panic and are trampled and sometimes drowned in the washing area. If the animals are very dirty, they may have to undergo two or even three washes, which of course increases their distress. In cold weather, the chilling caused by the washing causes further distress. After washing, the animals are placed in a holding pen until slaughter. Since it may then be several hours until the animals are actually slaughtered, they frequently become soiled in the holding pen, and may have to be re-washed. The present sequence of trucking, washing and holding the washed animals in a holding pen is time-consuming and labour-intensive, causes unnecessary fatigue and distress to the animals, and fails to achieve its object of cleaning the outside of an animal sufficiently to prevent contamination of the carcass by dirt/hair/wool during and after slaughter.

Disclosure of Invention

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method of handling animals immediately before, during and immediately after slaughter which achieves the following objectives:-

1. To minimize carcass contamination from any source. 2. To greatly reduce the length of time that animals are deprived of food before slaughter.

3. To greatly reduce distress and discomfort to the animals prior to slaughter; this improves the meat quality and flavour.

4. To reduce the water consumption requirements for the pre-slaughter preparation of animals.

5. To reduce the preparation required on farm prior to sending animals for slaughter.

The present invention provides a method of handling an animal immediately before, during, and immediately after, slaughter that includes the following steps:

(a) stunning the animal without any preliminary washing or cleaning;

(b) removing substantially all of the wool or hair from selected areas of the animal, the selected areas being those where the carcass needs to be cut to complete dressing of the carcass;

(c) bleeding the stunned animal either before or after step (b);

(d) cutting only through the selected areas of the carcass to complete dressing of the carcass.

If necessary, the selected areas of the carcass may be cleaned or cleaned and sterilized, before step (d). The method of the present invention takes advantage of the fact that hair or wool grows from the skin outwards, and hence tends to carry any soiling away from the animal's skin, as the hair/wool grows. In the case of very wooly or hairy animals (e.g. sheep, goats) when they are unshorn/unclipped, any dirt which gets onto the animals tends to rest on the outer wool or hair, leaving the underlying skin relatively clean.

The animal may be bled by conventional methods but preferably is bled by inserting catheters into at least one major blood vessel. If the latter method is used, then the blood can be extracted and stored hygienically so that it is suitable for use as a food or for pharmaceutical or other purposes.

Brief Description of Drawings

By way of example only, a preferred embodiment of the present invention is described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 is a flow chart illustrating the preferred sequence of events in the method of the present invention; and

Fig. 2 and 3 are side and plan views of a cutter suitable for the method of the present invention.

Best Mode of Carrying Out Invention

Referring to Fig. 1, in step 1 of the method of the present invention, the animals to be slaughtered are trucked to the abattoir, but without needing to ensure that the animals are 'empty' before trucking. This may have the side-effect of increasing the amount of soiling of, the animals at the trucking stage, but is much less stressful for the animals and keeps them , in better condition. Sheep need not be shorn, even partially, immediately before trucking.

On arrival at the abattoir, the animals are held in a holding pen (step 2) and may be supplied with food and water if necessary.

When the time comes for the animals to be slaughtered, the animals are draughted through into the abattoir and are stunned, in known manner (step 3). Each animal may then be bled, to complete the slaughter process (step 4). The bleeding may be carried out in the conventional manner (i.e. by cutting the animal's throat). Alternatively, the bleeding may be carried out by inserting catheters into the animal's major blood vessels. If this technique is used, then the same catheters may also be used, once bleeding has been completed, to insert a suitable preservative or identification substance or treatment substance (e.g. a marinade) into the animal's blood vessels.

Following the sequence of events shown in full line in Fig. 1, in step 5 the carcass is treated to remove all wool or hair as close to skin level as possible; this may be done over the whole carcass or simply over the selected areas where the carcass will need to be cut for dressing, i.e. from throat to brisket, brisket to each front hoof, brisket to crutch, each hind leg and over the anal area. The wool or hair is removed by shearing or shaving or any other suitable means, and the cut hair or wool is removed mechanically or manually, e.g. by combing, brushing or vacuuming. In the case of sheep, the wool is sheared as close to skin level as possible, and wide enough on each side of the line of the cut to prevent the remaining wool from flopping over into contact with the opened cut.

Next, in step 6, the areas from which the wool or hair has been removed are thoroughly cleaned to whatever extent is deemed necessary:- the method of cleaning used will of course depend upon the type of soiling (if any) and may consist of brushing and/or washing with hot or cold water with or without detergent. If necessary, the cleaned area can be dried, preferably by air drying.

The fact that the wool or hair is removed from the selected areas in step 5 often reduces or even eliminates the amount of cleaning required in step 6. This is especially true where sheep are concerned, because soiling often is confined to the outer layer of wool, which protects the underlying skin.

The cleaned areas may be sterilized if required. Any appropriate method of sterilization may be used, e.g., heat, ultraviolet light or chemical sterilization.

Dressing of the carcass is then completed (step 8), with the skin being cut open only along the cleaned areas. This very substantially reduces any risk of contamination of the carcass. Indeed, it is envisaged that the method of the present invention could provide substantially zero carcass contamination. A possible variation of the above described procedure is shown in broken lines in Fig. 1 :- it may be possible to carry out steps 5 and 6 immediately after stunning but before bleeding the carcass, and to bleed the carcass in step 7, after the hair removal and cleaning have been completed.

The fact that the animal has been allowed to eat until shortly before slaughter may mean that gut fill is a problem during the removal of the innards. If this is the case, the gut fill may be reduced by using a sluice inserted through the wall of the abdomen prior to opening the abdomen. The sluice is used to suck out the abdomen contents using a combination of vacuum and water jets.

A suitably shaped guard can be inserted between the innards and the abdomen wall to shield the knife tip during the opening of the abdomen. Preferably, the guard strip would incorporate a slot on the outside to run the knife tip down when opening the abdomen, to prevent accidental cutting of the innards.

Another possibility is to use a cutter which incorporates a suitable shield, as shown in Fig. 2 and 3.

The cutter 10 comprises a handle 11 one end of which is rigidly secured to a base 12 which supports a tip portion 13 parallel to the handle 11 but spaced from the handle by the length of the base 12. An angled blade 14 is removably secured to the base 12, with the cutting edge 15 angled from the tip back to the base. The outer end 16 of the cutting edge 15 is set back from the outer end 17 of the tip portion.

The cutter 10 is used as follows:- first, a conventional knife is used to cut an entry hole through the skin, typically on the shank of the carcass. Then the outer end 17 of the tip portion 13 is inserted into the hole, and the cutter is drawn up the carcass in the desired cutting direction (Arrow A). The tip portion 13 prevents the blade from digging too deeply into the carcass, and makes it easy to slide the cutter along the join between the flesh and the skin, giving a clean cut at the correct depth.

The cutter is suitable for manual or mechanical (robotic) use.

In addition to the substantial reduction in contamination of the carcass provided by this method, it provides considerable advantages in reducing the handling of the animals (which is labour-intensive and time-consuming) and in reducing the stress on the animals. It should be noted that whilst reducing stress on the animals is desirable in itself from the viewpoint of animal welfare, it also has direct commercial benefits in that it is an established fact that stress on an animal before slaughter tends to produce adrenaline in the animal and this toughens the meat.

Claims

1. A method of handling an animal immediately before, during, and immediately after, slaughter that includes the following steps: (a) stunning the animal without any preliminary washing or cleaning;

(c) bleeding the stunned animal either before or after step (b); (d) cutting only through the selected areas of the carcass to complete dressing of the carcass.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further including the step of cleaning the selected areas of the carcass before carrying out step (d).

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 further including the step of cleaning and sterilising the selected areas of the carcass before carrying out step (d).

4. The method as claimed in claim 2 or claim 3, wherein said cleaning includes brushing.

5. The method as claimed in any one of claims 2-4, wherein said cleaning includes washing with water followed by drying.

6. The method as claimed in any one of claims 2-4, wherein said cleaning includes washirig with water and detergent followed by drying.

7. The method as claimed in claim 5 or claim 6 wherein the drying is air drying.

8. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein in step (c) bleeding is carried out by inserting a catheter into at least one major blood vessel of the animal.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein after bleeding is completed, said catheter is used to insert into the animal's blood vessels a substance selected from the list consisting of: a preservative; an identification substance; a treatment substance.

10. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein step (d) is carried out using a cutter having a shielded blade and a guide tip portion protruding outwards of said blade in the cutting direction.

1 1. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein in step (b) the wool or hair is removed from the following areas: throat to brisket; brisket to each front hoof; brisket to crutch; each hind leg; around the anal area.

12. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 11 , wherein in step (b) the wool or hair is removed from the whole of the carcass.

13. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein in step (b) the wool or hair is removed by shearing or shaving and the cut wool or hair is removed from the carcass mechanically.

14. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 13 wherein in step (b) the wool or hair is removed by shearing or shaving and the cut wool or hair is removed from the carcass manually.

15. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein in step (d) gut fill is removed using a sluice inserted through the wall of the abdomen prior to opening the abdomen.

16. An animal carcass produced by the method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims.