The struggle to resurrect and pass the bill continued for several years. In 1958, the House overwhelmingly passed a humane slaughter bill but it was gutted by the Senate Agriculture Committee, which transformed it into a study bill. Senator Humphrey then took to the floor of the Senate in a seven-hour battle to overturn the Agriculture Committee's action. Humphrey finally succeeded as the Senate adopted the Humane Slaughter Act by a vote of 72 to 9 with an amendment that permitted religious slaughter to occur without prior stunning of the animals. President Eisenhower signed the bill into law with an effective date of June 30, 1960. The Act covered 80% of U.S. plants by requiring that humane methods be used by all packing companies selling meat to the federal government.
In 1978, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas and Congressman George E. Brown, Jr. of California sponsored legislation that expanded the coverage of the Act to protect livestock at all plants that are federally inspected. The legislation intended to provide more effective enforcement by allowing federal inspectors to stop processing lines until any cruel methods are corrected. However, the economic impact of stopping a processing line is so great that inspectors are rarely able to do so. An additional requirement of the 1978 law was that any meat imported into the U.S. must be derived from animals slaughtered in a manner that accords with the federal Humane Slaughter Act.
Downer animals shall not be dragged. In some instances, immediate slaughter may be the most humane thing to do, in which case the animal shall be given ante-mortem inspection and then stunned before moving it.
Pens, driveways, and ramps shall be kept in good repair to prevent injury to the livestock. Sharp objects, loose, splintered, or broken boards and other pain producing objects shall be eliminated or repaired. Pen floors and alleyways shall be slip resistant. Sand may be used to provide livestock with a more secure footing, especially during winter months....
Excluded from the Humane Slaughter Act, poultry are typically shackled and hoisted to hang upside down fully conscious, conveyed to where they are electrically stunned, then mechanically slit across their throats. However, unlike most chickens raised for meat, laying hens are usually not stunned before slaughter. Most of these birds are raised confined in small cages and various factors, including lack of exercise, increase the chance that their relatively fragile bones will shatter during stunning, which would decrease the economic value of their meat. In all types of slaughter plants, the higher the speed of the conveyor line, the greater the risk that individual animals will suffer an inhumane death, workers will be injured, and inspection of carcasses will miss signs of disease.
For animals other than poultry and ritually-slaughtered animals, it is a
requirement of The Humane Slaughter Act that livestock must be stunned
into unconsciousness before they are killed. The stunning of livestock is
normally accomplished by an electrical
Free fire cartridge A bullet is shot into the head of the animal.
Use of this technique is
rare, and only occurs in facilities where the head meat is condemned as
unfit for consumption.
Penetrating bolt stunner Either an exploding cartridge or,
in a pneumatic stun gun, a blast of air
from an air line, drives forward a piston and an attached penetrating rod
that enters the skull and brain of the animal and then retracts into the
gun.
Concussion stunner This device operates like a penetrating
bolt stunner, but a short,
mushroom shaped knob strikes the skull producing unconsciousness without
entering the brain.
The presence or absence of horns on the animal and the conformity of the
particular breed determines where on the skull the stun gun is placed,
although general recommendations are available.
Penetrating bolt or concussion stunners are normally used, at both small
and large slaughterhouses, to stun cattle. These stunners, also, are
usually used when goats, sheep, and hogs are slaughtered at small
slaughterhouses, while the larger plants more often use electric devices
on these smaller species.
One type of electrical stunner takes the form of large tongs with round
disks on the ends, which carry an electrical charge through the brain when
placed on either side of the head. In Europe, pigs are often passed
through a carbon dioxide chamber to rend er them unconscious, but this
technique is not common in the U.S.
A training film, Humane Slaughter of Livestock, which depicts
optimum stunning techniques, is available for slaughterhouse personnel
from the World Society for the Protection of Animals at 29 Perkins Street,
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 (617) 522-7000.
The original intent of Kosher slaughter included humaneness as an
essential aspect. Complications arise due to the fact that USDA's sanitary
regulations prohibit contact of the animal's cut surface with the
slaughterhouse floor. To comply with this requirement, slaughterhouses may
shackle animals by the leg and hang them upside down prior to slitting
their throats. While this may not present a problem when an animal has
been properly stunned, it can cause severe injury to animals and workers
when, as in Kosher slaughter, the animal is still conscious. An
alternative, more humane method, that satisfies both the requirements of
Kosher slaughter and of the USDA, is the use of a specially designed pen
that keeps the animals propped up off the floor, even after their throats
are slit, through the use of a belly lift rail between their
legs. Some slaughterhouses make use of this alternative while many do not.
Some of the meat found in conventional markets derives from animals
slaughtered by Kosher methods since the hindquarters of an animal are
never sold as Kosher and these parts are, therefore, sold in regular
channels. Approximately five percent of all animals are slaughtered by
Kosher methods. The percentage of individual plants that perform Kosher
slaughter is higher than five percent since the smaller plants are more
likely to offer this service than the larger ones.
For both conventional and religious slaughter, there is tremendous
variability in slaughterhouses in regard to the humaneness of their
practices. The attitude of the management is the key factor. Where the
personnel are found to be humane, it almost invariably can be traced to
managers of the facility that have made a commitment, for ethical or
economic reasons, to careful treatment of the animals.
[Source unknown]
KOSHER SLAUGHTER
Kosher foods are prepared and served according to the dietary laws of the
Jewish faith. Kosher slaughter is a specialized function performed by some
meat packers. Meat for the Kosher trade must come from animals slaughtered
by a Rabbi or a trained representative called a shochet. The Kosher method
of slaughter involves slitting an animal's throat and bleeding it without
first rendering it unconscious. Kosher practitioners believe this method
to be humane if the animals are handled gently, although this is debated.
There are other requirements of Kosher slaughter, including the Rabbi's
inspection of the carcass.
HALAL SLAUGHTER
Halal slaughter, a practice of the Moslem faith, also had origins in the
humane intent of religious teachings that emphasize the importance of
humane care of animals. However the practice requires slitting the throats
of conscious animals, and some slaughter houses first shackle and hoist
them in the air to comply with the USDA rules against an animal's cut
surface contacting the slaughterhouse floor. As in Kosher slaughter, such
painful shackling and hoisting of conscious animals is unnecessary. A
properly designed pen is a more humane method many facilities use to
comply with both religious and USDA requirements.