Recommended animal handling guidelines for meat packers

Abstract

Proper livestock handling is extremely important to meat packers for obvious ethical reasons. Once livestock arrive at packing plants. proper handling procedures are not only important for the animals' well-being. but can also mean the difference between profits and losses due to meat quality or worker safety. The Humane Slaughter Act of 1978 dictates strict animal handling and slaughtering standards for packing plants. Those standards are monitored by some 7.000 federal meat inspectors nation-wide. The meat packing industry takes these standards very seriously. For the best results in animal handling. plant management must make proper handling and stunning a high priority. Top management must play an active role. Plants with the best handling and stunning practices have managers who closely monitor stunning and handling practices. This manual provides employees and managers with information which will help them improve both handling and stunning. Employees handling hundreds of animals day after day sometimes need reminders from management that animals must always be handled carefully. Healthy animals. properly handled. keep the meat industry running safely. efficiently and profitably. This handbook is designed to help ensure that proper handling guidelines and recommended practices are widely understood.