Animal Slaughterhouse Research Paper

Modern slaughterhouses are designed to be very clean and efficient. These institutions are designed to end the lives of thousands of animals everyday. There are over 1100 slaughterhouses in operation all over North America. However these facilities have very similar ways to execute the animal. Chickens, ducks and turkeys are hung upside down by their feet. An automated slicer then proceeds to cut through the neck, essentially cutting off air supply to the brain. The carcasses are then dumped in a vat of boiling water to defeather the birds. The problem with this procedure is that the automated slicer has a tendency to miss its target. This results in the birds being maimed, but not dying, then the fully alive bird is then boiled to death. This may be traumatic but is nothing compared to pigs. For the most part the pigs are chosen to boiled alive. After arriving at the slaughterhouse the pigs can be stunned with low powered stun guns and then hung from meat hooks on their way to the boiling
chamber. Cows are also slaughtered very inhumanely. Cows are ushered into a chamber in the slaughter facility where the roof will slowly start coming down. The falling roof is designed to crush the spines of the cow, killing it. Due to the large amount of animals in the chamber, the process is quite slow and some smaller cows can survive. If a cow survives it will be zapped to death. Also all the animals are subjected to abuse as the factory workers have no idea how to control the animal. This is a very inhumane way to end the lives of the beings we decide to eat every day.

A more humane alternative that is gaining popularity is the shock method.
This method involves the animal, usually a pig or cow, to get a quick and powerful electrical shock to the forehead or temple. This shuts the brain down instantaneously, killing the animal. If the animal survives, the shock knocks it unconscious. While unconscious the animal will then be shocked again or have its throat slit. The downside to this method is that it takes much longer to accomplish and can only be used on larger animals. Also this allows the animal to develop Last Pig Syndrome. Last pig syndrome refers to the behavior of the last animal in the enclosure of the slaughterhouse. Farm animals, especially pigs, are very social and they are used to being in large groups. When they are the only animal in the pen, they go insane. They try frantically to escape, usually causing harm to the pig and damaging the pen. Pigs have even be known to break limbs and cause thousands of dollars of
damages.

Although there are not ways that can be perfectly humane to the animal, there are ways that we can improve our system to be kinder to the beings that we need to consume to survive.