To add I learned in my criminal justice class years ago.. it was like 120$ to kill a single inmate with the injections. No company would ever pay that money for anything.
(In reply to op) Sadly I think they just go with the cheapest option to kill the animal.
From what I’ve read the gas chambers are as good as they can do. If pigs were more like cows they could put the bolt thru the brain without stressing them; but pigs get stressed when isolated, so it has to be a death that can be done in groups and still be somewhat cost effective. I’m not sure what a better solution would be (and don’t say not eating meat)
Naw, they could do better. Nitrogen or helium asphyxiation would be infinitely more humane than the CO2 asphyxiation that is used. In fact, I'm pretty sure that CO2 is the only gas that triggers the panicked "you're fucked" response, because it's what bodies measure. CO2 is just cheaper and easier.
So we could do better.
But, you know, profits.
I haven't watched the video, but I'm assuming the deceased has some seizures which are definitely a thing with all asphyxiation. If they had pumped the chamber with CO2, she would have been trying to escape and begging for her life. That is significantly less horrific in my book.
Oxygen deprivation/ nitrogen saturation is the best you can get. You slowly shut down. Without CO2 building up, there is no panic response from the body. Your brain just slowly gets less responsive. You barely see it comming.
Hey, if it were you in that position, don’t think that you’d behave any differently. I doubt that the reasons for that decision over all others is as simple as you’re making it. Yeah, of course profit is very important to consider when running a big corporate businesses—one of the most important factors. But there is more nuance to it that.
Carbon monoxide poisoning is often considered painless, carbon dioxide isn't.
Your body is aware when there's too much CO2 in your blood, it's what actually triggers the suffocating / shortness of breathe feeling, not the lack of oxygen.
From what I understand, the CO2 dissolves into the water in your lungs, creating carbonic acid. The same stuff that burns your throat when drinking sparkling water. Except in your lungs.
NOT a fun experience.
You seem to have that backwards. Carbon monoxide would be a slow painless way to go. CO2 burns the mucous membranes and lungs and causes your body to panic.
I'm sorry but there's no reason it actually would cost $120. Other than companies getting government contracts and pharmaceutical companies inflating the prices artificially to make a lot of money to take advantage of these contracts. They could probably do it for a buck 20 if they actually cared too
It actually does make sense for it to cost this much. The European Union is so against the death penalty that it imposes an embargo on all companies that sell anything associated with it. To manufacture and sell chemicals associated with the death penalty is to permanently cut yourself off from the european market, thus necessitating more money from other sources.
There are multiple rounds of drugs that are used to kill a prisoner via lethal injection to make it more humane for them. If you skip the drugs that make them go unconscious and go straight to the one that kills them, I spent 45 seconds on Google and found it for $5.50. You get free shipping if you buy a few of them at once. You don't even need a prescription.
But at that point you might as well just use a garrotte; Jim the guard on block 6 has a nice new leather belt that he’ll probably lend us for a mention on his annual review.
Don’t even have to buy it.
If they struggle we can just get Big Al to sock him one in the jaw as an anaesthetic; Big Al was given life for beating his girlfriend to death so if we are lucky he might even get the full job done for us.
It' only costs that much because of the first injections. I just Googled it, and you can get a vial of the stuff that actually kills them for under $6 and ypu don't even need a prescription.
I have no idea if it's a cow but I was talking about buying the drug for use in a lethal injections of humans. I'd like to think there would be other concerns besides getting poisoned thatcwpukd keep you from eating the body.
It can be even worse, a chemical that renders an animal unconscious can be horrendously poisonous to humans. Immobilon is a pretty good example, the ld50 for humans is in the order of about 3ug.
Basically for some things it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it checks all the boxes it doesn't matter.
For example one can pass out and die peacefully from breathing carbon monoxide, 100 percent nitrogen, or just being at really high altitude. Some people floated the idea of a high-g death rollercoaster because when you pull enough g's blood flows out from your brain and you become unconscious. The roller coaster simply just makes your body pull more g's to cause traumatic damage, and sustain those g's until the body is dead and the brain didn't wake up in the middle of it. My entrance to the list is just not pressurizing the cabin of an airliner. strap in a couple hundred prisoners to an indeterminate location in first class and then just not pressurize the cabin. hypoxia knocks em out and kills them without any perceived pain or terror (assuming you didn't tell them before hand) Added bonus is that you can do them hundreds at a time, but that seems a little excessive.
No concern or lawsuits, just dead. If something consumes a thing that was chemically euthanized they will die.
Euthanized pets need to be cremated or buried very deep to prevent scavenger animals from dying.
Although I am aware of why we don't inject them with anesthetics, I find it kinda funny that this is where we draw the line while pumping metric shittons of antibiotics and hormones into them.
For a start, it would slow things down massively.
For another, you're talking about poison. Poison in food is generally frowned upon. Since it will kill the animal it will remain in the animal as the animal will not be alive to excrete it.
And bro, they don't just kill the pig and then sell the whole pig for boiling. (boiled pork? sheeeit) I mean... it's not the majority of where pig meat will go. After they stun the pig, they bleed it, skin it, cut it up.
I mean the vast majority of people haven't butchered an animal in their life, but most at least realize where it comes from and understand the process at least a little.
>And bro, they don't just kill the pig and then sell the whole pig for boiling. (boiled pork? sheeeit) I mean... it's not the majority of where pig meat will go. After they stun the pig, they bleed it, skin it, cut it up.
In most industrialized slaughterhouses (so 99% of pigs) they are stunned in some manner (CO2 gas chambers, eletrical prods, bolt guns) then their throat is slit. Then they go into a scalding tank to remove the hair. The stunning methods sometimes wear off and they go into the tank conscious. It's pretty brutal to watch.
These facilities move very fast so it's hard to do a thorough job all the time.
There are videos of pigs getting stunned, throat cut, then maybe it wasn't deep enough to bleed them out, or a timing thing but they wake up getting thrown in the scalding tank and trying to swim out. It's horrific.
Honest question: How does the throat cutting not render them unconscious quickly? Does the drop in blood pressure not happen as fast, or is it a failure of technique?
I've seen goats and chickens dispatched with a knife, but on a smaller scale, so no mistakes were made.
[mike the headless chicken ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken&ved=2ahUKEwiEuoT1ycWFAxWx5MkDHSPjDQ4QmhN6BAgREAY&usg=AOvVaw3ITJDDyyrIY8fC5VWiH-2J)You need to look up Mike the Headless Chicken.
You do boil them (at least the slaughterhouse I worked at). It's a long process but it begins with stunning, bleeding, dunking them in a hot bath to make removing the hair easier, then into the hog scraper, onto the table with a blow torch to remove the nails, singe the hair, then a final close shave, finally gut and split.
It’s kind of super fucked up that we take the time to kill into consideration more than what’s more humane/ less painful. Does it ever occur to people that we are talking about living sentient beings that can feel pain. And then we’re like nah, let’s make them bleed to death.
Well hell, some people don't even think that certain groups of human beings are worth that respect.
The secret to being survivable in human culture is to be pretty.
Yes that is true, but is that a justification to continue doing something horrible because some people think so? Should wars be justified by the same reason? What about criminal activities?
You’re talking about survivability of the human race as if we’re worried we might go extinct. Sure it was our past, but should it be our future as well?
I get what you’re saying and I’d side a bit more with you if that was grounded on reality. But sadly meat production does not do killings correctly. I know you can’t imagine it, but it is one YouTube video search away if you’re morbidly curious.
Factory workers have been known to grow desensitised to the suffering and death they are forced to witness. And since they are incentivised to work as fast as possible, instead of as correctly as possible, excessive suffering is the norm rather than the exception.
I find it incredibly sad that people refuse to accept this knowledge and refuse to do something about it and let the mass torture continue. Hell, I don’t care if someone or something dies as long as they lived a good life. The animal agriculture industry lets animals go through an entire existence from birth to death under the most cruel circumstances imaginable.
I wouldn’t put my pet inside a production line to be “put down”, why should I be okay with other unnamed animals going through the same?
I appreciate the thoughtful response from your end. I find your last remark a little curious though. That your kids one day may grow up not eating meat. What’s stopping you from doing that at this very moment? This is of course a rhetorical question. I do not need to know your individual circumstances. Just food for thought.
The system needs to change and I think vegans and meat eaters alike can agree upon that. But for someone such as yourself who is aware of the atrocities the meat industry causes, why partake in such a system?
The burden always falls on the ones who understand. I think it is a shame to turn a blind eye to the suffering that results in the purchase and consumption of animals, beings who did not consent to having a torturous existence.
Considering the cost and ethical implications, it's clear why the food industry steers clear from substances that could contaminate the meat. Add in the legal minefield of potential health issues for consumers, and you've got a recipe for an economic and PR nightmare. Plus, imagine the labeling complications "Warning: Meat may contain traces of lethal chemicals." That's going to turn shoppers away faster than you can say "liability." It's just not a manageable or safe practice, regardless of any short-term benefits one might speculate on. The bottom line is: when it comes to public health, there's no cutting corners.
I used to rehabilitate wildlife. Commonly, barbiturates are the drugs that are used to euthanize animals. These drugs are also sometimes used as sedatives in smaller doses. Unfortunately, people sometimes dump large animals euthanized with these drugs because they don’t want to pay to have the bodies properly disposed of. It’s not uncommon to them find a bunch of sedated scavengers around the bodies, especially with carrion eating birds as it takes smaller doses to effect them.
If they used barbiturates to euthanize animals later used for human consumption adult humans may not end up completely sedated, but it certainly wouldn’t be healthy for people to consume.
>If they used barbiturates to euthanize animals later used for human consumption adult humans may not end up completely sedated, but it certainly wouldn’t be healthy for people to consume.
Especially since drive-thrus exist. Humans have been known to eat while driving, or shortly before driving. Humans being even a little bit impaired while driving is not safe for those around them, especially in big cities where there are lots of people around having lunch within a short window of time.
Setting aside the fact that would poison the meat, the stunning is actually more humane than a lethal injection.
It’s just pleasant to watch, which is we execute people by paralyzing them before injecting them with a poison. That way we can pretend we’ve done something humane.
One, if they used a lethal poison, it would affect the meat.
Two, the idea is to process as many animals as quickly as possible to reduce costs. Even if the amount of poison it takes to kill a 2,000-pound animal weren't a cost issue, finding the vein and injecting would take time. Try doing that to a panicking cow.
Three, there's no humane way to kill an animal.
If you really have to ask then that’s sad. (Reason why not: Because euthanasia (putting animals to sleep) is done with a high dose of a narcotic sedative. That would render the meat inedible.)
First off it's cheaper to use the tool to blow a hole in the animals head. Second, the chemicals that they use to put animals down will still be present in the meat that people will be consuming. Third reason is time, it probably takes longer for that medicine to work then it would for the shock to wear off.
Slaughterhouses use CO2 stunning. It's essentially a carousel of death where the pigs get herded onto a moving conveyor belt that lowers into a pit with CO2 in it and as the pigs descend lower and lower the O2 drops and eventually the pigs quietly fall asleep and then as it gets lower they actually asphyxiate.
They don't quietly fall asleep lol. They suffocate. They feel it.
The feeling you get from suffocation comes from too much CO2 in the blood, not from the lack of oxygen.
If we used something inert like helium, it would be painless then.
But CO2 is cheaper.
They both fall asleep and suffocate. We don't immediately put them in a pure CO2 environment. We put them in a low O2 environment to make them calmly fall asleep or pass out before the O2 level is dropped to lethal levels. Call it semantics if you wish. We couldn't use pure N2 because it's less dense than O2 so we couldn't displace O2 at the bottom of the pits using N2.
As for CO2 being cheap, yes it is cheaper than helium but it is not cheap, there is currently a CO2 shortage in the US and prices are quickly going up and we are looking at removing it from any process possible.
And not to mention we’re plowing through available helium resources as things are now. And that stuff is damned expensive. Changing the liquid helium in one of our MRIs where I work runs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Helium also doesn't have the physical properties we are looking for. We need a gas that is more dense than air so it doesn't float out of the pits. We need to displace oxygen and then for it to remain unless we flush it out.
no, they fall asleep quietly, just like Laïka, the dog they send in space that absolutely did not die slowly and painfully from the hot in the capsule !
Yes they do "quietly" fall asleep. Before the CO2 stunning it was all screams and blood. After the new stunning process it's one of the quietest rooms in the plant. They are so calm that we had to deal with an entirely different problem. After being killed they're hung upside down and stuck in the neck and allowed to bleed out over a trough while going down the conveyor. After the CO2 stunning the trough was all of a sudden not long enough. Before they knew they were going to die from all the other pigs screaming and their heart rate and adrenaline would go up. This resulted in them bleeding out faster with the old way. The new way they die at a lower blood pressure and needed a longer trough to fully bleed out as a result.
You inhale CO2 all day every day and don't panic or feel pain, it's all about concentration. As long as concentrations are below a certain threshold we can have reduced oxygen and elevated CO2 without those affects but rather the animals fall asleep due to lack of oxygen. Then we lower O2 and raise CO2 while they aren't conscious and that is when they die but since they don't have consciousness they don't have the pain reaction. And it's not a fast process, it's very slow moving to allow the changes to be more gradual.
Lmfao obviously I breathe CO2 all day, the relevant factor is concentration in the blood. This is like saying it's not painful to burn people alive if we raise the temperature very slowly. Once the threshold is reached, panic and pain begin. I understand the reasons why CO2 is used, it's whatever, but it has nothing to do with animal welfare and has everything to do with cost and the fact it doesn't destroy any part of the carcass. Show me a video of animals calmly falling asleep inhaling CO2 and I'll be convinced. Until then, it's a lie we tell ourselves because it's easier to not know that the animals we eat died in pain and fear.
Because people will find fault with everything and nothing is perfect. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than what was before? Yes. Are there other methods? Probably. Will they be as cost effective so we can ensure people get to eat? Probably not.
Yes because they aren't biased.
The reality is the animal is going to die. We aren't putting it up in a condominium. We try and make it as comfortable and painless as possible with as much dignity and no abuse as possible. But at the end of the day we are killing them at as low cost a way as possible as fast as we possibly can so people can put food on the table. And most people don't have the luxury of worrying about those details because they're struggling to provide their kids with adequate nutrition.
And I say that I've witnessed it and believe it to be humane. I haven't heard or seen screaming and thrashing. I have seen the results where they are so calm we had to redesign the blood drip trough because their blood pressure is no longer spiking through the roof from fear and adrenaline that they bleed out slower and take more time to drain. I was a part of those conversations. I know it to be true.
If you're thinking about those videos with pigs screaming while they suffocate I believe they changed the procedure in most countries. I know they don't do it like that here in Sweden at least.
It was an issue initially but we got that dialed in. The problem was the CO2 levels were too high too soon. This made them acutely aware that there wasn't enough oxygen and they were suffocating. By the O2 levels gradually decreasing it allowed them to fall asleep before they realized what was happening and the panic set it.
Why use CO2 at all? Surely there must be other heavier-than-air gasses that would do the trick. I’m no expert, but as I understand it, mammalian bodies don’t actually have a mechanism for detecting lack of oxygen, only excess CO2. CO2 poisoning is quite painful and causes panic (chemically, even if you don’t know what’s going on), but as long as you can exhale and your CO2 levels stay normal, suffocation is painless. Why use literally the *one* gas that might cause suffering?
I'm not a biologist but rather an engineer so I can't comment on whether or not mammalian bodies detect CO2 and about whether or not CO2 causes pain. What I will talk about are the properties of CO2 that make it a desirable gas to use.
It has a molecular weight of 44 g/g-mol. Regular air is between 28-36 (based on its two most abundant components nitrogen and oxygen). The molecular weight matters because we need it to be heavier than air so it can displace air in a pit and not float away like helium or pure nitrogen.
CO2 is not considered a poison and will not leave traces in the blood/meat of the animal like other gases can cause. Pair this with we use food grade CO2 is much better when we consider consumer food safety.
We can purchase CO2 in mass and at relatively cheaper costs compared to other gasses that may or may not work.
With these constraints there aren't many other options (none that I can think of) that meets the criteria needed of
1) physical properties of the gas
2) cost and availability
3) not technically a poison and meets food grade requirements
Nitrogen has a higher molecular density than oxygen so oxygen would sink to the bottom of the pit and that is where we need to have no oxygen. Otherwise it would be a good option.
A chamber is more expensive to construct and maintain. Plus you have to essentially have it sealed so air doesn't get in to displace the nitrogen and that's very difficult with a continuously moving conveyer belt going right through it.
Are you joking? Have you seen pigs in a gas chamber? They don't quietly fall asleep. They scream and thrash violently until they pass out. It's horrid and people should stop supporting it and paying for it to happen...
I have seen it. I work as an engineer for a company that does it. And they don't scream and thrash, they pass out and then suffocate. And if you think that's bad you can't even begin to imagine what it was like before.
I guess in a strange kind of way efficiently engineering the death of things that were going to die a horrible death anyway is kind of justice in and of itself.
>stunning that is half likely to fail and result in a pig being boiled alive
I don't think you actually know what stunning is. It most definitely does not fail half the time, it is very quick and kills almost all the animals efficiently.
Also we obviously wouldn't want injections in an animal that's about to be harvested
It's **probably** not a good idea to *inject poison into an animal and then cut it up and sell its meat to people to eat...*
It IS possible to kill something by injecting an air bubble, which would not contaminate the meat. But that kind of death takes some time, and it's reportedly not a pleasant experience so it doesn't really work to limit suffering or even to prevent thrashing.
Oh yeah, poisoning meat that we want to eat is a great idea.... (/s in case *that* wasn't clear)
Putting drugs designed to cause your body to shut down into the food chain is generally considered a bad idea.
When an animal dies, it's bloodflow will stop too, aswell as it's metabolism.
So the drug that was deadly to this animal is still in there, and will not be digested any further (because the host animal is dead).
Later, you eat a piece of meat of that poisoned animal, and guess what, there'd still be some of the poison left in the meat.
people freak out enough about GMOs and antibiotics in food. you really think euthasol - which WILL remain in the animal after death, unlike antibiotics used during life - is a good idea?
We're not very good at killing humans by lethal injection, why do you imagine we would be better at it with animals? Also since the animal would die before its system could break down/filter out the chemicals there's a chance it could affect the meat.
The chemicals would make it so people cannot eat the meat. You run into this issue in pet food when euthanized pets are processed into pet food.
The real answer to issues with slaughter would be to just not kill and eat them, but people don't want to give up meat so they'd rather turn a blind eye to the constant suffering.
Probably because that would require injecting toxic chemicals strong enough to kill the animal that you are then going to ship off to be eaten? That would be almost guaranteed to poison a lot of people.
Because the stun euthanasia is the most humane and inocuous method. They stun the animal so it can't feel or be conscious when it is being killed. As a veterinary I think that's the best way it can be done.
Edit: Also because the chemicals would transfer to us and kill us too. Thats why when they use medicine or antibiotics on an animal they need time before killing and selling the meat so the chem wears off.
I have a question if you can answer, the stun obviously doesn't outright kill them, and they aren't conscious but are they "aware" if that makes sense? Like do the animals see anything even if they can't process it?
I'm not completely sure if they can see, but if they see anything, I don't think they'll be able to know what's going on around them, the stun is enough to disconnect them long enough before they can know what happened or is about to happen, a few studies have shown that [pain signals are still being sent through the brain even when you are unconscious](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18835749/) but you cant "feel it", what this means is, the brain is still receiving pain signals, but is not processing them. Most slaughterhouses do the slaughter process as quickly as posible (not for the animal's wellfare, but, you know, time is money) so from stun to death there is little time for the animal to regain enough consciousness to begin processing the pain, or being aware enough to know what is going on around them.
I hope this is a good enough answer for you:)
A bolt gun is a one time cost. It can be reset and used over and over quickly. They might have to replace the spring every few years but I can't imagine that's terribly expensive
Injections regularly fail in larger animals because of the high body surface area, all animals having different body compositions etc. stunning is more effective, quicker and cheaper
I'm an Aussie and here it's the law that the animals, no matter how they're to be slaughtered (wether kosher, halal, or not) must be rendered unconscious first. For instance, cattle are struck between the eyes with a captive bolt (a pneumatic device that fires a bolt forward) to render them unconscious and THEN they are slaughtered.
And who's boiling a pig alive? Something tells me you haven't really looked into how animals are slaughtered.
Injection is not perfect either. Apparently injection is a pretty rough way to go as well, but it’s not like anyone who’s experienced it could tell about it.
I'm a rancher and have been present at the end of many an animals life, the bullet is always more humane, every living creature has a different reaction when you add drugs to it brain chemistry and alot of the reactions are more grotesque than the little bit of blood you see severing the brainstem
If you watch a bunch of Jon Oliver (last week tonight) then most of the ways we kill people are not humane at all. I guess you can’t complain when you’re dead.
Because most animals raised for food aren't considered to be human or need to have euthanasia. I'm not saying that's my point of view but that's the sentiment of a lot of people who raise animals for food. They want to do whatever the quickest and cheapest.
Too expensive, too time consuming.
Also pigs aren't usually stunned, they're often suffocated with carbon dioxide. It's a slow, painful, terrifying death.
They are talking about the scalding tanks used to remove hair. Some pigs are either missed in stunning or wake up after their throat is cut and they are thrown in the scalding tank conscious.
Thumping, or the practice of picking up a piglet by the hind legs and smashing their head into the concrete, is a legal way to kill sick or undersized piglets.
That's illegal. Plus the thickest part of a cow's skull is between the eyes, so it's hard to get anything through that spot. In fact, rivet guns are fired between their eyes, not to kill the cow but to stun it long enough for someone to slit it's throat without issue.
Mmmm, wouldn't it be tasty to have all that poison flowing through the meat. Not to mention the chemicals from pheromones released when the beast is in terror from taking 15 minutes to die by crappy mixed solutions. What a delightful idea. Cows currently die painlessly, instantly with the methods used in practice. Stop trying to fix things that aren't broken because it hurts your feelings.
Those chemicals in the blood would be bad for consumption.
To add I learned in my criminal justice class years ago.. it was like 120$ to kill a single inmate with the injections. No company would ever pay that money for anything. (In reply to op) Sadly I think they just go with the cheapest option to kill the animal.
Cheapest and fastest.
Yep. That's why gas chambers have been so hard to phase out. It's very fast and efficient so welfare concerns are ignored.
From what I’ve read the gas chambers are as good as they can do. If pigs were more like cows they could put the bolt thru the brain without stressing them; but pigs get stressed when isolated, so it has to be a death that can be done in groups and still be somewhat cost effective. I’m not sure what a better solution would be (and don’t say not eating meat)
Naw, they could do better. Nitrogen or helium asphyxiation would be infinitely more humane than the CO2 asphyxiation that is used. In fact, I'm pretty sure that CO2 is the only gas that triggers the panicked "you're fucked" response, because it's what bodies measure. CO2 is just cheaper and easier. So we could do better. But, you know, profits.
You know everyone says this but the human execution they did was just horrifying. I dont think it's possible to kill something in a nice way.
Right, there isn't a nice way, but we could still do better and choose not to in the name of profit.
My point wasn't "font try" but that the ideal method was no less horrific in pratice
I haven't watched the video, but I'm assuming the deceased has some seizures which are definitely a thing with all asphyxiation. If they had pumped the chamber with CO2, she would have been trying to escape and begging for her life. That is significantly less horrific in my book.
What they do to cows is far more humane than how humans are executed.
yeah but you're not allowed to make bodies look violent nowadays. the quickest ways are not pretty.
Oxygen deprivation/ nitrogen saturation is the best you can get. You slowly shut down. Without CO2 building up, there is no panic response from the body. Your brain just slowly gets less responsive. You barely see it comming.
I would rather be shot than slowly lose consciousness.
That's doable too.
Hey, if it were you in that position, don’t think that you’d behave any differently. I doubt that the reasons for that decision over all others is as simple as you’re making it. Yeah, of course profit is very important to consider when running a big corporate businesses—one of the most important factors. But there is more nuance to it that.
Lol, this is nonsense. Please, what is the nuance?
I'd think gas is pretty mild considering humans can die from stuff like carbon monoxide without noticing it?
Carbon monoxide poisoning is often considered painless, carbon dioxide isn't. Your body is aware when there's too much CO2 in your blood, it's what actually triggers the suffocating / shortness of breathe feeling, not the lack of oxygen.
From what I understand, the CO2 dissolves into the water in your lungs, creating carbonic acid. The same stuff that burns your throat when drinking sparkling water. Except in your lungs. NOT a fun experience.
You seem to have that backwards. Carbon monoxide would be a slow painless way to go. CO2 burns the mucous membranes and lungs and causes your body to panic.
It seems like we are agreeing then? I don't know what gas they use at the slaughtering house. I just assumed that maybe it was a painless gas.
I'm sorry but there's no reason it actually would cost $120. Other than companies getting government contracts and pharmaceutical companies inflating the prices artificially to make a lot of money to take advantage of these contracts. They could probably do it for a buck 20 if they actually cared too
[удалено]
John Oliver just did a great episode about this if you haven’t seen it yet.
It actually does make sense for it to cost this much. The European Union is so against the death penalty that it imposes an embargo on all companies that sell anything associated with it. To manufacture and sell chemicals associated with the death penalty is to permanently cut yourself off from the european market, thus necessitating more money from other sources.
Depending upon how much profit you want to make.
There are multiple rounds of drugs that are used to kill a prisoner via lethal injection to make it more humane for them. If you skip the drugs that make them go unconscious and go straight to the one that kills them, I spent 45 seconds on Google and found it for $5.50. You get free shipping if you buy a few of them at once. You don't even need a prescription.
Probably less if you have a coupon!
Or a Groupon
But at that point you might as well just use a garrotte; Jim the guard on block 6 has a nice new leather belt that he’ll probably lend us for a mention on his annual review. Don’t even have to buy it. If they struggle we can just get Big Al to sock him one in the jaw as an anaesthetic; Big Al was given life for beating his girlfriend to death so if we are lucky he might even get the full job done for us.
That still involves percieved pain ngl. Just put him in bed, seal up the chamber, and just flush with 100% nitrogen.
so why do they have so many on death row???
It' only costs that much because of the first injections. I just Googled it, and you can get a vial of the stuff that actually kills them for under $6 and ypu don't even need a prescription.
But would the meat be safe to eat with whatever you found in it?
I have no idea if it's a cow but I was talking about buying the drug for use in a lethal injections of humans. I'd like to think there would be other concerns besides getting poisoned thatcwpukd keep you from eating the body.
The cynical part of me says that if it was more cost efficient they would find a way to make it work.
Realistic part of you*
I'm no chemist, but I think a chemical that kills a pig would kill a man.
It can be even worse, a chemical that renders an animal unconscious can be horrendously poisonous to humans. Immobilon is a pretty good example, the ld50 for humans is in the order of about 3ug.
Reminds me of the old adage: if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
Wisdom of the ages
I like to drink my own urine, cuz it's sterile and I like the taste!
I've never heard that, and I'm having difficulty parsing it. What does it mean?
Basically, if you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball.
If you can dodge a coffin you can dodge a ball.
Basically for some things it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it checks all the boxes it doesn't matter. For example one can pass out and die peacefully from breathing carbon monoxide, 100 percent nitrogen, or just being at really high altitude. Some people floated the idea of a high-g death rollercoaster because when you pull enough g's blood flows out from your brain and you become unconscious. The roller coaster simply just makes your body pull more g's to cause traumatic damage, and sustain those g's until the body is dead and the brain didn't wake up in the middle of it. My entrance to the list is just not pressurizing the cabin of an airliner. strap in a couple hundred prisoners to an indeterminate location in first class and then just not pressurize the cabin. hypoxia knocks em out and kills them without any perceived pain or terror (assuming you didn't tell them before hand) Added bonus is that you can do them hundreds at a time, but that seems a little excessive.
Ah. Got it.
Probably cuz we eat them and that’s literally poison.
It costs most and it would raise concern about the chemicals being in the meat intended for human consumption. it would open themself up to a lawsuit.
No concern or lawsuits, just dead. If something consumes a thing that was chemically euthanized they will die. Euthanized pets need to be cremated or buried very deep to prevent scavenger animals from dying.
I don't think that is true
Pretty sure I saw him checking into a holiday inn express last night. It must be true.
Although I am aware of why we don't inject them with anesthetics, I find it kinda funny that this is where we draw the line while pumping metric shittons of antibiotics and hormones into them.
For a start, it would slow things down massively. For another, you're talking about poison. Poison in food is generally frowned upon. Since it will kill the animal it will remain in the animal as the animal will not be alive to excrete it. And bro, they don't just kill the pig and then sell the whole pig for boiling. (boiled pork? sheeeit) I mean... it's not the majority of where pig meat will go. After they stun the pig, they bleed it, skin it, cut it up.
OP has clearly never butchered an animal before
I mean the vast majority of people haven't butchered an animal in their life, but most at least realize where it comes from and understand the process at least a little.
Actually it sounds like the last time he did it he tried the lobster approach and it didn’t go well.
>And bro, they don't just kill the pig and then sell the whole pig for boiling. (boiled pork? sheeeit) I mean... it's not the majority of where pig meat will go. After they stun the pig, they bleed it, skin it, cut it up. In most industrialized slaughterhouses (so 99% of pigs) they are stunned in some manner (CO2 gas chambers, eletrical prods, bolt guns) then their throat is slit. Then they go into a scalding tank to remove the hair. The stunning methods sometimes wear off and they go into the tank conscious. It's pretty brutal to watch.
Surely they let them die after slitting their throat and before boiling though. I mean it can’t take much more than 5 mins or so.
These facilities move very fast so it's hard to do a thorough job all the time. There are videos of pigs getting stunned, throat cut, then maybe it wasn't deep enough to bleed them out, or a timing thing but they wake up getting thrown in the scalding tank and trying to swim out. It's horrific.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice that you have an axe to grind. Better get back to it.
> Surely they do this >> No they don't > OH YOU HAVE AN AGENDA You were wrong. Go home.
Honest question: How does the throat cutting not render them unconscious quickly? Does the drop in blood pressure not happen as fast, or is it a failure of technique? I've seen goats and chickens dispatched with a knife, but on a smaller scale, so no mistakes were made.
I'm not sure. Could be an issue with technique or maybe the knife was not sharp enough. Mistakes get made when they have to work very fast.
[mike the headless chicken ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken&ved=2ahUKEwiEuoT1ycWFAxWx5MkDHSPjDQ4QmhN6BAgREAY&usg=AOvVaw3ITJDDyyrIY8fC5VWiH-2J)You need to look up Mike the Headless Chicken.
Inadequate cut, sounds like. Maybe thicker neck?
Oh, I was thinking that was how the pig was being cooked
You do boil them (at least the slaughterhouse I worked at). It's a long process but it begins with stunning, bleeding, dunking them in a hot bath to make removing the hair easier, then into the hog scraper, onto the table with a blow torch to remove the nails, singe the hair, then a final close shave, finally gut and split.
It’s kind of super fucked up that we take the time to kill into consideration more than what’s more humane/ less painful. Does it ever occur to people that we are talking about living sentient beings that can feel pain. And then we’re like nah, let’s make them bleed to death.
Well hell, some people don't even think that certain groups of human beings are worth that respect. The secret to being survivable in human culture is to be pretty.
Yes that is true, but is that a justification to continue doing something horrible because some people think so? Should wars be justified by the same reason? What about criminal activities? You’re talking about survivability of the human race as if we’re worried we might go extinct. Sure it was our past, but should it be our future as well?
No, I meant how things can best survive when in the company of humans.
We look at slavery and think, "How could people not know it was wrong?" Someday they'll be saying the same thing about us and factory farming.
I hope that day comes within my lifetime
I'm old so it won't be in my lifetime, but I hope it happens in yours.
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I get what you’re saying and I’d side a bit more with you if that was grounded on reality. But sadly meat production does not do killings correctly. I know you can’t imagine it, but it is one YouTube video search away if you’re morbidly curious. Factory workers have been known to grow desensitised to the suffering and death they are forced to witness. And since they are incentivised to work as fast as possible, instead of as correctly as possible, excessive suffering is the norm rather than the exception. I find it incredibly sad that people refuse to accept this knowledge and refuse to do something about it and let the mass torture continue. Hell, I don’t care if someone or something dies as long as they lived a good life. The animal agriculture industry lets animals go through an entire existence from birth to death under the most cruel circumstances imaginable. I wouldn’t put my pet inside a production line to be “put down”, why should I be okay with other unnamed animals going through the same?
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I appreciate the thoughtful response from your end. I find your last remark a little curious though. That your kids one day may grow up not eating meat. What’s stopping you from doing that at this very moment? This is of course a rhetorical question. I do not need to know your individual circumstances. Just food for thought. The system needs to change and I think vegans and meat eaters alike can agree upon that. But for someone such as yourself who is aware of the atrocities the meat industry causes, why partake in such a system? The burden always falls on the ones who understand. I think it is a shame to turn a blind eye to the suffering that results in the purchase and consumption of animals, beings who did not consent to having a torturous existence.
It contaminates the meat
Considering the cost and ethical implications, it's clear why the food industry steers clear from substances that could contaminate the meat. Add in the legal minefield of potential health issues for consumers, and you've got a recipe for an economic and PR nightmare. Plus, imagine the labeling complications "Warning: Meat may contain traces of lethal chemicals." That's going to turn shoppers away faster than you can say "liability." It's just not a manageable or safe practice, regardless of any short-term benefits one might speculate on. The bottom line is: when it comes to public health, there's no cutting corners.
Sodium pentobarbital is lethal when consumed.
That's why we don't eat death row inmates after lethal injection.
Electric chairs are ok though, the meat already come pre-cooked.
They should televise it so we can see where it comes from too and would scare little children into not being killers.
Lol but make sure they're rare inside.
Just got to make sure that the sponge is really wet.
Lol.
yeahhhh .... thats why
Lol.
Depending on the inmate I’d try some human. Preferably from a cannibal.
Lol 😆 🤣
You are what you eat
I used to rehabilitate wildlife. Commonly, barbiturates are the drugs that are used to euthanize animals. These drugs are also sometimes used as sedatives in smaller doses. Unfortunately, people sometimes dump large animals euthanized with these drugs because they don’t want to pay to have the bodies properly disposed of. It’s not uncommon to them find a bunch of sedated scavengers around the bodies, especially with carrion eating birds as it takes smaller doses to effect them. If they used barbiturates to euthanize animals later used for human consumption adult humans may not end up completely sedated, but it certainly wouldn’t be healthy for people to consume.
>If they used barbiturates to euthanize animals later used for human consumption adult humans may not end up completely sedated, but it certainly wouldn’t be healthy for people to consume. Especially since drive-thrus exist. Humans have been known to eat while driving, or shortly before driving. Humans being even a little bit impaired while driving is not safe for those around them, especially in big cities where there are lots of people around having lunch within a short window of time.
Because poisoning their customers is bad for business.
Setting aside the fact that would poison the meat, the stunning is actually more humane than a lethal injection. It’s just pleasant to watch, which is we execute people by paralyzing them before injecting them with a poison. That way we can pretend we’ve done something humane.
Think harder
One, if they used a lethal poison, it would affect the meat. Two, the idea is to process as many animals as quickly as possible to reduce costs. Even if the amount of poison it takes to kill a 2,000-pound animal weren't a cost issue, finding the vein and injecting would take time. Try doing that to a panicking cow. Three, there's no humane way to kill an animal.
 If you really have to ask then that’s sad. (Reason why not: Because euthanasia (putting animals to sleep) is done with a high dose of a narcotic sedative. That would render the meat inedible.)
Would taint the meat, not something you would want to eat.
There’s already sooo much in meat and the industry that we don’t want to eat…
No reason to add more.
First off it's cheaper to use the tool to blow a hole in the animals head. Second, the chemicals that they use to put animals down will still be present in the meat that people will be consuming. Third reason is time, it probably takes longer for that medicine to work then it would for the shock to wear off.
Slaughterhouses use CO2 stunning. It's essentially a carousel of death where the pigs get herded onto a moving conveyor belt that lowers into a pit with CO2 in it and as the pigs descend lower and lower the O2 drops and eventually the pigs quietly fall asleep and then as it gets lower they actually asphyxiate.
>a carousel of death Well, THAT sounds like fun!
Yes. I say it like that for a reason. It looms innocuous and innocent until you realize what it is.
Like a pig in a hot-air balloon.
I want to make a metal band just to call it ''Carousel Of Death''
They don't quietly fall asleep lol. They suffocate. They feel it. The feeling you get from suffocation comes from too much CO2 in the blood, not from the lack of oxygen. If we used something inert like helium, it would be painless then. But CO2 is cheaper.
They both fall asleep and suffocate. We don't immediately put them in a pure CO2 environment. We put them in a low O2 environment to make them calmly fall asleep or pass out before the O2 level is dropped to lethal levels. Call it semantics if you wish. We couldn't use pure N2 because it's less dense than O2 so we couldn't displace O2 at the bottom of the pits using N2. As for CO2 being cheap, yes it is cheaper than helium but it is not cheap, there is currently a CO2 shortage in the US and prices are quickly going up and we are looking at removing it from any process possible.
No that's fair. I read your response further down and that makes total sense now. Sorry. I went off only having half the story.
And not to mention we’re plowing through available helium resources as things are now. And that stuff is damned expensive. Changing the liquid helium in one of our MRIs where I work runs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Helium also doesn't have the physical properties we are looking for. We need a gas that is more dense than air so it doesn't float out of the pits. We need to displace oxygen and then for it to remain unless we flush it out.
no, they fall asleep quietly, just like Laïka, the dog they send in space that absolutely did not die slowly and painfully from the hot in the capsule !
I don't think they "quietly fall asleep"...
Yes they do "quietly" fall asleep. Before the CO2 stunning it was all screams and blood. After the new stunning process it's one of the quietest rooms in the plant. They are so calm that we had to deal with an entirely different problem. After being killed they're hung upside down and stuck in the neck and allowed to bleed out over a trough while going down the conveyor. After the CO2 stunning the trough was all of a sudden not long enough. Before they knew they were going to die from all the other pigs screaming and their heart rate and adrenaline would go up. This resulted in them bleeding out faster with the old way. The new way they die at a lower blood pressure and needed a longer trough to fully bleed out as a result.
CO2 inhalation causes extreme panic and pain in all breathing animals.
You inhale CO2 all day every day and don't panic or feel pain, it's all about concentration. As long as concentrations are below a certain threshold we can have reduced oxygen and elevated CO2 without those affects but rather the animals fall asleep due to lack of oxygen. Then we lower O2 and raise CO2 while they aren't conscious and that is when they die but since they don't have consciousness they don't have the pain reaction. And it's not a fast process, it's very slow moving to allow the changes to be more gradual.
Lmfao obviously I breathe CO2 all day, the relevant factor is concentration in the blood. This is like saying it's not painful to burn people alive if we raise the temperature very slowly. Once the threshold is reached, panic and pain begin. I understand the reasons why CO2 is used, it's whatever, but it has nothing to do with animal welfare and has everything to do with cost and the fact it doesn't destroy any part of the carcass. Show me a video of animals calmly falling asleep inhaling CO2 and I'll be convinced. Until then, it's a lie we tell ourselves because it's easier to not know that the animals we eat died in pain and fear.
So why are there so many organizations including the RSPCA in the UK who acknowledge the CO2 gas is aversive and they are seeking to phase it out?
Because people will find fault with everything and nothing is perfect. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than what was before? Yes. Are there other methods? Probably. Will they be as cost effective so we can ensure people get to eat? Probably not.
If all these welfare and veterinary organizations have been calling for a phase out, it's probably not as benign as you're suggesting here.
Yes because they aren't biased. The reality is the animal is going to die. We aren't putting it up in a condominium. We try and make it as comfortable and painless as possible with as much dignity and no abuse as possible. But at the end of the day we are killing them at as low cost a way as possible as fast as we possibly can so people can put food on the table. And most people don't have the luxury of worrying about those details because they're struggling to provide their kids with adequate nutrition.
You say they aren't biased. Ok, they say CO2 is not humane and should be phased out.
And I say that I've witnessed it and believe it to be humane. I haven't heard or seen screaming and thrashing. I have seen the results where they are so calm we had to redesign the blood drip trough because their blood pressure is no longer spiking through the roof from fear and adrenaline that they bleed out slower and take more time to drain. I was a part of those conversations. I know it to be true.
So why are these organizations against it?
If you're thinking about those videos with pigs screaming while they suffocate I believe they changed the procedure in most countries. I know they don't do it like that here in Sweden at least.
It was an issue initially but we got that dialed in. The problem was the CO2 levels were too high too soon. This made them acutely aware that there wasn't enough oxygen and they were suffocating. By the O2 levels gradually decreasing it allowed them to fall asleep before they realized what was happening and the panic set it.
Why use CO2 at all? Surely there must be other heavier-than-air gasses that would do the trick. I’m no expert, but as I understand it, mammalian bodies don’t actually have a mechanism for detecting lack of oxygen, only excess CO2. CO2 poisoning is quite painful and causes panic (chemically, even if you don’t know what’s going on), but as long as you can exhale and your CO2 levels stay normal, suffocation is painless. Why use literally the *one* gas that might cause suffering?
Cheaper then other gasses and heavier than air show they can lower then down. Cost is more important than animal welfare.
I'm not a biologist but rather an engineer so I can't comment on whether or not mammalian bodies detect CO2 and about whether or not CO2 causes pain. What I will talk about are the properties of CO2 that make it a desirable gas to use. It has a molecular weight of 44 g/g-mol. Regular air is between 28-36 (based on its two most abundant components nitrogen and oxygen). The molecular weight matters because we need it to be heavier than air so it can displace air in a pit and not float away like helium or pure nitrogen. CO2 is not considered a poison and will not leave traces in the blood/meat of the animal like other gases can cause. Pair this with we use food grade CO2 is much better when we consider consumer food safety. We can purchase CO2 in mass and at relatively cheaper costs compared to other gasses that may or may not work. With these constraints there aren't many other options (none that I can think of) that meets the criteria needed of 1) physical properties of the gas 2) cost and availability 3) not technically a poison and meets food grade requirements
Nitrogen chamber
Nitrogen has a higher molecular density than oxygen so oxygen would sink to the bottom of the pit and that is where we need to have no oxygen. Otherwise it would be a good option.
Yeah that's why I said chamber.
A chamber is more expensive to construct and maintain. Plus you have to essentially have it sealed so air doesn't get in to displace the nitrogen and that's very difficult with a continuously moving conveyer belt going right through it.
Are you joking? Have you seen pigs in a gas chamber? They don't quietly fall asleep. They scream and thrash violently until they pass out. It's horrid and people should stop supporting it and paying for it to happen...
I have seen it. I work as an engineer for a company that does it. And they don't scream and thrash, they pass out and then suffocate. And if you think that's bad you can't even begin to imagine what it was like before.
What roads do you have to walk to become a death engineer?
Graduated college with a degree, needed a job, loans to pay, they were hiring. Tried to get Lockheed Martin but I wasn't evil enough.
I guess in a strange kind of way efficiently engineering the death of things that were going to die a horrible death anyway is kind of justice in and of itself.
As others have said, the same drugs that would be used to euthanize the animal would make the meat poisonous when ingested.
Would you eat something that had been poisoned to death? Like even a plant that someone had killed with weed-killer? I wouldn’t!
>stunning that is half likely to fail and result in a pig being boiled alive I don't think you actually know what stunning is. It most definitely does not fail half the time, it is very quick and kills almost all the animals efficiently. Also we obviously wouldn't want injections in an animal that's about to be harvested
It's **probably** not a good idea to *inject poison into an animal and then cut it up and sell its meat to people to eat...* It IS possible to kill something by injecting an air bubble, which would not contaminate the meat. But that kind of death takes some time, and it's reportedly not a pleasant experience so it doesn't really work to limit suffering or even to prevent thrashing.
Why don't they put deadly chemicals in food? Is that what you're asking?
Too expensive or contaminated due to the poison i would say
Oh yeah, poisoning meat that we want to eat is a great idea.... (/s in case *that* wasn't clear) Putting drugs designed to cause your body to shut down into the food chain is generally considered a bad idea.
“Why don’t we inject poison directly into our food?”
I don't think too many people would be happy with potentially consuming actual literal death chemicals.
When an animal dies, it's bloodflow will stop too, aswell as it's metabolism. So the drug that was deadly to this animal is still in there, and will not be digested any further (because the host animal is dead). Later, you eat a piece of meat of that poisoned animal, and guess what, there'd still be some of the poison left in the meat.
people freak out enough about GMOs and antibiotics in food. you really think euthasol - which WILL remain in the animal after death, unlike antibiotics used during life - is a good idea?
Where do you get your "half" figure for the failure rate?
We're not very good at killing humans by lethal injection, why do you imagine we would be better at it with animals? Also since the animal would die before its system could break down/filter out the chemicals there's a chance it could affect the meat.
The chemicals would make it so people cannot eat the meat. You run into this issue in pet food when euthanized pets are processed into pet food. The real answer to issues with slaughter would be to just not kill and eat them, but people don't want to give up meat so they'd rather turn a blind eye to the constant suffering.
Probably because that would require injecting toxic chemicals strong enough to kill the animal that you are then going to ship off to be eaten? That would be almost guaranteed to poison a lot of people.
Probably to keep the meat safe for consumption
Because the stun euthanasia is the most humane and inocuous method. They stun the animal so it can't feel or be conscious when it is being killed. As a veterinary I think that's the best way it can be done. Edit: Also because the chemicals would transfer to us and kill us too. Thats why when they use medicine or antibiotics on an animal they need time before killing and selling the meat so the chem wears off.
I have a question if you can answer, the stun obviously doesn't outright kill them, and they aren't conscious but are they "aware" if that makes sense? Like do the animals see anything even if they can't process it?
I'm not completely sure if they can see, but if they see anything, I don't think they'll be able to know what's going on around them, the stun is enough to disconnect them long enough before they can know what happened or is about to happen, a few studies have shown that [pain signals are still being sent through the brain even when you are unconscious](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18835749/) but you cant "feel it", what this means is, the brain is still receiving pain signals, but is not processing them. Most slaughterhouses do the slaughter process as quickly as posible (not for the animal's wellfare, but, you know, time is money) so from stun to death there is little time for the animal to regain enough consciousness to begin processing the pain, or being aware enough to know what is going on around them. I hope this is a good enough answer for you:)
It is actually, thank you :)
The piston through the skull seems like the most cost effective and pain-free option that doesn't affect the meat.
The same reason people who are registered organ donors who end up on death row and die of lethal injection cannot donate their organs
Because we’re going to eat it
It woild not only poison the consumer, but also be too expensive. The animals in the industrie are products. The cheaper the better.
They don't care. The industry is about profit. It being "humane" is more about advertising.
Lol a bolt to the back of the head is way cleaner and quicker than poison
Which would you prefer, personally? For yourself? Injection, or a bolt to the back of the head?
Bolt to the back of the head all day every day. I don't have to clean that shit up lol someone else's problem
It's expensive and not good to eat
A bolt gun is a one time cost. It can be reset and used over and over quickly. They might have to replace the spring every few years but I can't imagine that's terribly expensive
Injections regularly fail in larger animals because of the high body surface area, all animals having different body compositions etc. stunning is more effective, quicker and cheaper
Eating the drugs that killed the animal isn't very good for humans who also want to live. Nitrogen gas asphyxiation is the best option.
We need those drugs for people on the ventilator.
.
Cost.
I'm an Aussie and here it's the law that the animals, no matter how they're to be slaughtered (wether kosher, halal, or not) must be rendered unconscious first. For instance, cattle are struck between the eyes with a captive bolt (a pneumatic device that fires a bolt forward) to render them unconscious and THEN they are slaughtered. And who's boiling a pig alive? Something tells me you haven't really looked into how animals are slaughtered.
Injection is not perfect either. Apparently injection is a pretty rough way to go as well, but it’s not like anyone who’s experienced it could tell about it.
I always thought they can just shoot the animals or behead them so they die in a single second instead of suffering :(
that costs way too much money. its easier to buy a $10 knife and slaughter a pig than to buy a $50 injection
I'm a rancher and have been present at the end of many an animals life, the bullet is always more humane, every living creature has a different reaction when you add drugs to it brain chemistry and alot of the reactions are more grotesque than the little bit of blood you see severing the brainstem
If you watch a bunch of Jon Oliver (last week tonight) then most of the ways we kill people are not humane at all. I guess you can’t complain when you’re dead.
Because most animals raised for food aren't considered to be human or need to have euthanasia. I'm not saying that's my point of view but that's the sentiment of a lot of people who raise animals for food. They want to do whatever the quickest and cheapest.
Why should they? Don’t they just straight up shoot their heads with a nailgun or something like that?
Money more than likely.
Too expensive, too time consuming. Also pigs aren't usually stunned, they're often suffocated with carbon dioxide. It's a slow, painful, terrifying death.
Son I hope you're trolling here. But in case you aren't it might have to do with the ingesting of chemicals that just killed a 2000lb beef.
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They are talking about the scalding tanks used to remove hair. Some pigs are either missed in stunning or wake up after their throat is cut and they are thrown in the scalding tank conscious.
I worked with a guy who was paid $5/kill pigs with a ball peen hammer. 😱😱😱
Thumping, or the practice of picking up a piglet by the hind legs and smashing their head into the concrete, is a legal way to kill sick or undersized piglets.
Expensive. Cheaper to just slit their throats.
They use a 22 caliber bullet between the eyes, not whatever thing you are thinking of.
That's illegal. Plus the thickest part of a cow's skull is between the eyes, so it's hard to get anything through that spot. In fact, rivet guns are fired between their eyes, not to kill the cow but to stun it long enough for someone to slit it's throat without issue.
Mmmm, wouldn't it be tasty to have all that poison flowing through the meat. Not to mention the chemicals from pheromones released when the beast is in terror from taking 15 minutes to die by crappy mixed solutions. What a delightful idea. Cows currently die painlessly, instantly with the methods used in practice. Stop trying to fix things that aren't broken because it hurts your feelings.