Today we were busy all day giving welfare trainings to small groups of employees of a large pig slaughterhouse. Tomorrow we will return as 50 employees in total are participating. We worked with this slaughterhouse for the past 3 years to drastically improve the design of automated electric pig stunning and the way pigs are moved through it, in an effort to help phase out the alternative option of CO2 gas stunning of pigs. Together with this plant we wanted to show that there are better options than CO2 gas, which causes a feeling of suffocation in pigs and chemical burning of their mucous membranes. We regularly train the employees to make sure the pigs are handled in small groups, without causing panic or pain or loud noise, in the hope that more “humane” electric stunning can replace CO2 in the future. It is unrealistic to think that pig slaughter can stop now but we can stop all the unnecessary additional suffering now. Thank you to this plant and its employees for being so open and motivated to try something new and better.
