Slaughter of animals is a necessary step of meat production process that takes place out of public view, but that is a subject of consumers' and civil society organisations' concern. Public policies are progressing constantly to meet social expectations and optimize official controls in...

Electroencephalography (EEG) can be reliable for assessing the brain's electrical activity of preslaughter stress and pain. The duration between the ventral neck cut and induction of a state of unconsciousness/insensibility is crucial in the slaughtering of animals, reducing pain, fear, and...

Electrical stunning is widely utilized prior to a neck cut to induce unconsciousness in order to improve animal welfare and slaughter efficiency in the broiler production industry. However, slaughter without stunning is still very commonly used in China, in part because there is a belief that ...

Efficacious euthanasia by applying manual cervical dislocation can be difficult on large and mature poultry. The challenge with using manual cervical dislocation is that the strength required to hold heavy poultry and swiftly apply cervical dislocation can be physically impossible for most people....

The ethical and economic significance of slaughtering animals for consumption by people of faith cannot be underestimated. On one hand, there are concerns for the welfare of animals during rearing, transport and slaughter, on the other, the market for halal meat products continues to grow at an...

This study evaluated the prevalence and tested the inter-observer repeatability of the most valid and feasible animal-based indicators of the state of consciousness after waterbath stunning in broilers before bleeding (tonic seizure, breathing, spontaneous blinking and vocalization) and during...

To be compliant with religious requirements for poultry, slaughter facilities using controlled atmosphere stunning may require a reliable method for detecting signs of life. However, the production setting challenges methods utilized in veterinary and field use by generating excess sound and...

The aim of in ovo sex determination in chicken hatching eggs is to detect male embryos and terminate their development at an early stage of incubation to avoid killing day-old-chicks after hatch. Since there is no secure scientific knowledge on presence or absence of pain perception between day 7...

We investigated the effects of stunning methods and gas treatments during slaughter on the quality characteristics of chicken breast and small intestine. Broilers (Ross 308) were stunned and slaughtered using halal, CO₂, or N₂ gas stunning methods (for 10 birds). After slaughter, the pH, proximate...

Mixing livestock and poultry kept separately in batches of similar weights and ages increases stress, engages them in fighting on arrival at processing facilities, exhausts them because of long-distance transport, rough handling, deprivation of water or feed. All this has effects on animal welfare...