Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 10/15/15

Meat packing companies looking to improve animal handling at their facilities must first sort people problems from facility problems, animal handling expert Temple Grandin told a ballroom full of meat industry members at the North American Meat Institute’s Animal Care and Handling Conference here.

Grandin said she’d rather see an older, but well-maintained facility with a well-trained staff to a state-of-the-art facility without properly trained employees.

At the plant
When it comes to improving animal handling at the slaughter facility, Grandin said attention to detail is critical; the smallest thing can spook an animal. Something as simple as the contrast of a white plastic cup dropped on a brown floor, a paper towel hanging from a dispenser or a hose left in their sightline can cause an animal to balk.

Lighting, airflow and floor maintenance are also critical. Moving a light by 12 inches to eliminate a shadow, hanging a curtain or moving a fan so air is not blowing in the animals’ faces can dramatically lower animal balking, which reduces the need for employees to use prods or paddles. Even if a fan is turned off, if natural wind starts turning the blades slowly in the animals’ sightline, they can startle.

Changing the color of employees’ hats and clothing to reduce the contrast with the color of the chute can also help keep animals calmer.

One issue for packing plant employees is to understand the difference between tapping and beating an animal with a plastic paddle. Grandin said a good training example is tapping a corrugated cardboard box with a plastic paddle. If the box starts to crush, then tapping has become beating.

To pass a NAMI animal care audit, a facility must earn a passing score five measures:
• Stunning the animal with one shot
• Rendering the animal insensible
• Proper use of electric prods
• Percentage of animals falling own 
• Level of animal vocalization

Part of this equation is limiting distractions for the animal, including: light reflecting on water or metal, air blowing, moving people or equipment, a chute entrance that is too dark or a visual cliff on a conveyer. Grandin also warned that slick floors are a big problem, in part because floors wear out slowly.

Grandin said electric prods must be used sparingly and definitely should not be a handler’s primary tool.

“Get those prods out of their hands,” she said, noting that lightly touching an animal with a vibrating wand can reduce electric prod use by 70 percent.  

“We have to look at everything we do and ask, 'How would this play on YouTube?'” she suggested.

Keeping crowd pens only half full and moving animals in small groups is also a key way to improve cattle movement to the knock box.

On the farm
Grandin made the point that cattle ranchers and hog farmers also bear some of the responsibility for how animals react once they are unloaded at the plant.

“We need to work with suppliers,” she said, noting that cattle that have never interacted with humans on foot — perhaps herded on horse or with dogs and then not vaccinated or corralled for any reasons — will have a lot more problems being handled at the plant.

Hog farmers, Grandin said, “Have got to walk their pens,” for the same reason. Hogs that are used to seeing humans on foot will be much calmer when it comes to being herded by employees at the plant.

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