Page 156 - The Welfare of Cattle

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The NAMI auditing guidelines consist of two primary sections: transportation and slaughter.
The slaughter guidelines were established first. The core criteria of the slaughter audit guidelines
are the most crucial standards for an audited slaughter establishment to pass. Failure on any one
of the core criteria will result in complete failure of the audit. The following are considered core
criteria within the slaughter audit: Effective Stunning, Bleed Rail Insensibility, Falls, Vocalizations,
Electric Prod Usage, and Willful Acts of Abuse. Willful acts of abuse are rare, but they result in
immediate audit failure if they are observed. The NAMI Animal Care and Handling Guide defines
a willful act of abuse as:
… includ(ing) but not limited to: (1) Dragging a conscious, nonambulatory animal; (2) intention-
ally applying prods to sensitive parts of the animal such as the eyes, ears, nose, anus, or testicles;
(3) deliberate slamming of gates on livestock; (4) malicious driving of ambulatory livestock on top
of one another either manually or with direct contact with motorized equipment (this excludes load-
ing a nonambulatory animal for transport); (5) purposefully driving livestock off high ledges, plat-
forms or off a truck without a ramp (driving market weight or adult animals off a low stock trailer is
acceptable); (6) hitting or beating an animal; or (7) animals frozen to the sides or floor of the trailer.
The performance standards for each of the core criteria, with the exception of willful acts of
abuse, are based on the occurrence of events associated with each core criterion. For Effective
Stunning, 96% or more of a minimum of 100 animals must be stunned with a single application
of the stunning device. For Bleed Rail Insensibility, 100% of the animals must be insensible while
suspended on the bleed rail. It is completely unacceptable to begin slaughter procedures on animals
that are not insensible to pain. It is also required that 100% of animals remain insensible on the
bleed rail in 9 C.F.R. §313.
For falls, 1% or less of the animals are allowed to experience a fall during handling. In early
iterations of the NAMI Animal Care and Welfare Guidelines, both slips and falls were included as
core criteria; however, substantial debate regarding the appropriate definition of a slip and the mini-
mal impact of slipping on animal welfare so long as it did not result in falling prompted the NAMI
Animal Welfare Committee to remove slipping from the core criteria and more clearly define a fall.
The definition of fall that is used in the NAMI Animal Care and Welfare Guidelines is:
A fall occurs when an animal loses an upright position suddenly in which a part of the body
other than the limbs touches the ground. All falls that occur in a stun box or restrainer before
stunning or religious slaughter are counted as falls. Equipment that is designed to cause falling
before stunning or religious slaughter should not be used.
Vocalizations are counted for cattle in the crowd pen, lead-up chute, stun box, or restrainer at
slaughter facilities. The maximum allowable vocalization occurrence is 3% of the animals that
pass through this area of the facility. The maximum for facilities that use head restraint to securely
restrain the heads of cattle during ritual slaughter and/or stunning is 5% vocalization. The rationale
between the difference in standards is that cattle with restrained heads tend to vocalize in response
to the stress associated with securing the head of the animal. Head restraint is considered to be good
for animal welfare as long as the restraint is not maintained for a length of time that causes animals
to become distressed. Head restraint helps to ensure accurate placement of captive bolt stunning
devices and facilitates the placement of the cut during ritual slaughter. The NAMI Guide recom-
mends that auditors do not attempt to score vocalization in lairage because cattle tend to vocalize to
communicate with others when they are not overtly distracted by stressors.
For all types of cattle, electric prod use is limited to 25% or less of all animals audited for prod
use. In the 1990s, when this criterion was set, some plants struggled to comply with the standard
because electric prods had become their primary handling tool. Increased attention on electric prod
use as a result of this standard caused beef slaughter establishments to become more attentive to
facility and handling issues that were detrimental to animal movement. In the early 2000s a slaugh-
ter establishment in the Great Lakes region developed a vibrating prod from a modified engraving
tool powered by compressed air. Although these tools have helped to greatly reduce the use of