Slaughter your Animals Humanely This Festive Season

During the festive seasons, we love to slaughter animals and feast with our friends and families. But did you know that how you slaughter your animals determines the quality of meat that ends up on your plate?

Around the globe, over 200 million farm animals will be slaughtered every day, that is approximately 72 billion animals a year!.

As animals get slaughtered, they undergo unnecessary stress and suffering due to a lack of skills, knowledge, and technology to conduct humane slaughter. In addition, the inhumane slaughter of animals results in pain, violating their freedom from pain, disease and injury. Therefore, humane slaughter aims at reducing pain and suffering before and during the slaughter of an animal.

“Humanely slaughtering an animal renders it the freedom from pain, disease, disease and injury. On the other hand, inhumane slaughter subjects an animal to unnecessary pain, while correct procedures can minimize this.” Dr. Judy Kimaru, Director at Eco Clubs of Kenya.

So, as you slaughter your animals this festive season, please consider the following humane ways to minimize pain and suffering on the animal, and eat safe, healthy meat;

• Ensure that meat is inspected by a certified veterinarian so that you eat healthy and safe meat to avoid the spread of zoonotic diseases from animals to humans.
• Transport animals in suitable vessels and give them enough depending on the temperatures outside. These two points determine the condition of the meat at the point of slaughter. We all want to eat good quality meat.
• Feed animals some balanced diet the previous day before the slaughter so that the animal doesn’t utilize the energy reserved to sustain normal body functions causing weight loss hence reduced meat to sell.
• To avoid unnecessary pain, stun the animals before slaughter to prevent the animal from bleeding out when still conscious. A poorly stunned animal will also gasp for air, leading to blood being inhaled from the cut site (throat region) into the lungs. This kind of death is painful and cruel to the animal. Blood soaked meat is also graded poorly during inspection due to its dark appearance and shortened shelf life of the meat.
• Finally, ensure that you slaughter animals on non-slip floors to avoid them falling and getting injured before being killed. Fall injuries render the meat quality poor, and for business people, that means more money in your pocket.