Today Eyes on Animals and Dr. Ellen Eser, a Humane-Slaughter expert and welfare-trainer met with V-Cons. V-Cons is a Belgian company that produces equipment for conventional and Halal slaughterhouses. This company tries to put thought into their designs in order to limit suffering as much as possible and requested to meet with us to brainstorm on new ideas. Scientific studies (Diarel and Dr. Temple Grandin publications, to name just a few) advocate that during Halal and conventional slaughter of cattle, the animals should be upright. Unfortunately good upright boxes for Halal slaughter are still difficult to find, most companies in Turkey permit live hoisting from a trip-floor box and in Europe the 180 degree rotational box is common and still tolerated. Both cause pain and panic.
Cattle in the 180 degree rotational box are stressed because a prey animal on its back is an unnatural and vulnerable position, plus after the Halal cut is made blood can re-enter the trachea and lungs and the animal can pass out if left too long in this position. V-Cons offers upright restraint boxes for Halal slaughter but we made it clear that they should only be sold with a mandatory belly-lifter, to be sure that nothing touches the throat-cut once the animal loses the ability to stand but it still conscious. We discussed other ideas to improve cattle-welfare at slaughter in Turkey and during the current stunning methods of pigs. We are staying in touch and hopefully in a few months we can report on 2 exciting and promising developments initiated by this meeting. We would like to thank V-Cons for making the effort to further strive for better conditions in slaughterhouses. As long as people eat meat and dairy, we see it as vital to be in dialogue with such open-minded companies to alleviate as much suffering as possible together.
