The slaughterhouse in Çorlu (Turkey) was the first one that was interested in improving animal welfare and was ready to stun cattle at their plant. We bought a really good pneumatic stunner from the company EFA and installed it about 8 years ago for them.
The workers learned how to use it. Joanne McArthur from WeAnimals was with us to document this breakthrough. Sadly though, a few years later, they stopped using it. A local official representative of the Ministry of Agriculture came to office in this region and he was closed- minded to this change in slaughter practices, wrongly claiming it was not halal and likely under pressure from Dyanet too. Additionally some meat-buyers from the plant complained about the use of a stunner. We returned several times to try to improve the situation but to no avail. Today we returned with the idea of taking our pneumatic stunner back, but the new veterinarian manager and one of the workers promised they use it now again. Not on all cattle, but on the larger ones. This is still better than no animals. The stunner was indeed hanging up in the restraint box and was also attached to the compressor. It therefore looked in use still. So we will give them the benefit of the doubt for 2 more months and in this time they need to send us videos regularly of it in use.
We lease out stunners and provide trainings to slaughterhouses with pleasure, but the equipment and knowledge must be put into practice to give real relief to the animals if not we will move on to more willing parties.
