Humane slaughter-oxymoron?

[Pisces Coda]

I don't know if this is the right board for this, if not, sorry.


I've been thinking a lot about this lately. People who eat free-range animals, or the people who have their own farms, and raise/slaughter their own meat; yes, they are raised humanely (hopefully). How are they slaughtered? Is there a way to humanely slaughter?? Please don't just post "no.". I'm honestly curious about this. I realize most people who raise their own animals for slaughter do it to avoid the chemicals and weird stuff in the meat, not for the humanity. It still got me thinking. I can't see any other way of slaughtering besides slicing them open while alive. Is there a humane way?

[Mskedi]

Let's say that someone has planned to kill me at the age of 30. There's no way for me to avoid it, but this unusually kind asassin has allowed me to choose one of these two methods of death:
1)A quick, nearly (if not completely) painless death by way of being put under by a drug and then a carefully aimed shot to the head or another method that causes instantaneious death
or
2) Death by either lethal injection or electricution while I'm conscious and where they might have to poke me with the needle a bunch of times before they find the vein, or where the shock isn't quite enough to kill me right away, or something goes wrong and I'm in pain for a while before I die...

Yeah, it would suck that I'd have to die at 30 either way, but I'd definitely go with the first choice. Does that make it humane? I think it's a relative term... it would be the more humane method. The most humane method, of course, would be not to kill at all.

[hopeforanimals]

I don't think it's possible to use "humane" and "slaughter" together. Slaughtering--cutting open the animal's throat and allowing it to bleed to death--is not humane. Euthanasia by injection is what I consider humane when euthanasia is necessary. I don't consider lethal injection slaughter.

[Irizary]

Farm animals without question develop bonds to others in their social group.

Would it be o.k. with you if someone took and killed your mother, father, child, best friend, whoever...and killed them, even if they managed to do it "humanely?" "Humane" involves more than just the animal who is himself or herself being slaughtered.

And what does "humane" mean when you take a creature who doesn't want to die, and has no reason to die other than that you want to use their body, and kill them? It's not euthanasia.

But I think anyone would want to die if they were kept how the vast majority of food animals are kept today.

[Pisces Coda]

People who raise their own animals for meat, or free-range farms aren't going to euthanize them and risk having that in their dinner. So that's what I mean. Free Range is better, as far as the living conditions, but jesus christ...

I honestly was asking if there's some other way besides just-about decapitating them that I never thought of. Or if anyone does know anyone who raises their own animals, what they do to slaughter (if any different from above) them.

[Pisces Coda]

Okay you aren't getting my question. I don't think any of them should be killed, period. But for the ones who DO eat/raise "free-range", is the end any different from the factory ones??

[Irizary]

I *was* answering your question, and expanding on the idea of "humane."

Are you asking some technical question about is there a "painless" way to kill them, like how companion animals are euthanized?

As you said, people don't want the chemicals in their meat. I guess they can gas them, as they do for some chickens - but there are still the transport issues, the stress and confusion, and all of that. If being tossed into a gas chamber with a bunch of other beings sounds painless, I guess that's it. I don't imagine the jews liked it any better in the concentration camps, but I suppose it's less technically painful than being strung up be your feet, moving along a conveyer, being scalded, and having your head chopped off or something.

[Kiz]

You ask a question and then tell us not to answer in a particular way? What do you mean "please don't say no"? No, I don't think it is humane to kill animals just to eat them. Human perhaps, unfortunately, but not humane. Maybe free range animals do meet their ends in a kinder way (I doubt it though), maybe they don't. But to kill them for a moment's gratification while they are on your plate is not humane.

[jeremiah313]

i have read that if their throats are cut properly and with a very sharp knife, they do not feel the pain. it was described as being similar to being cut with a razor or sharp knife, where it takes a little while to feel the pain. but with the animals, they are dead before they can feel any pain. i am vegan and of course do not support the killing of animals under normal circumstances, this is just what i have read. i think a common method is shooting them in the head with a .22 as well, but i have read this causes more suffering than cutting the throat.

[Irizary]

Pisces,

kosher slaughter is supposedly "more humane," but it does not work out that way in practice...
http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=agri_long

[Mollie]

my 2 cents: at least they have become more aware of thier practices..and are making some attempt to resolve the problem...

baby steps...no matter how small..or oxymoronic...are steps non the less...lets be greatful that even this much is being done....that means there is some progress....change is slow

[Kiddoemo]

well i dont think "lethal injection" is an option for meat, as before they die it does circulate through the body and into the flesh...so if someone ate that animal they would probably pass out for a little bit. I do not think free-range animals die any differently than mass-produced animals, but i think the point is that they are dying....which (i think, and im sure many of you agree) is not what animals are for to begin with. there you go.

[Hummusisyummus]

I got the impression from Fast Food Nation that there are actually very few slaughtering/packing plants, so it would seem likely that organic/free range cows would meet the same end as regular cows. They could be more humane if they reduced the speed at which the cows are processed, but whenever profit and animals are put together the animals lose out.

As far as I know the most humane way to kill something is with a sharp guillotine but people tend to avoid using them because (obviously) it's really easy to lose a finger or arm around one.

[Pisces Coda]

Yeah, that's what I was trying to figure out. People talk about free-range/organic meat and how it's so much better for the animals. I never gave a 2nd thought to it because I didn't eat any of it. Then one day I was just thinking about yes, their living conditions are more humane, but is the end any different; and how much better IS free-range/organic meat on animal suffering if they're all tortured at the end.

When I said "please don't just say no" because obviously killing in itself isn't humane. We all know that. My question was more of a "How are they 'humanely' killing these animals that makes it so much more okay for them to eat". Aside from the health aspects of chemicals and weird stuff being in the factory-farm meat, but for people who think they're doing the animals a favor by buying free-range/organic meat.

*"humane" being THEIR words, not mine.

[PortableKitten]

In most cases, smaller and organic growers utilize the same slaughterhouses as the animal factories do. In some cases smaller slaughterers are used, but in general, the animals are killed the same way. They are stunned and their throats are slit. The difference is between how they are raised, not so much how they die. There is nothing humane about being killed for no good reason, no matter how the animal is raised. JMO!

[rainbow_clouds]

As far as I know the most humane way to kill something is with a sharp guillotine but people tend to avoid using them because (obviously) it's really easy to lose a finger or arm around one.
If you are talking about severing the head with a guillotine, there is much debate about if someone can live for a few second after their head is severed. (because it's such a clean cut) Here (http://www.metaphor.dk/guillotine/Pages/Guillot.html) is an interesting report on it.

[jeremiah313]

the end is basically the same, but the life is supposedly better for free range. it would be like a person being trapped in the attic(factory farm) his whole life, or being able to "run free" in the whole house(free-range). it is wrong to keep someone locked in the house, but it would be better to let them use the whole house rather than just the attic.

[Irizary]

the end is basically the same, but the life is supposedly better for free range. it would be like a person being trapped in the attic(factory farm) his whole life, or being able to "run free" in the whole house(free-range). it is wrong to keep someone locked in the house, but it would be better to let them use the whole house rather than just the attic.

True, but warning not to romanticize or put too much faith in the label "free range." It's often enough just as bad as regular old factory farming.

Read this: http://www.cok.net/lit/freerange.php

[Suki_Eulalie]

I think it was someone on this board, somewhere, and a while ago who responded to me with something along the lines of; In order to exist on this earth it is inevitable that you take life to sustain your own. (be it plant or animal) The difference is the respect and method you use to do this.

While yeah...a death is a death and however you go about it, it sucks. I think its much better to give an animal a healthy, happy, natural life before you kill it for food...and I have much less of a problem with people who raise their own meat. Even if the end result is the same, slit throat. (though I think there has to be a better way)

[Hummusisyummus]

If you are talking about severing the head with a guillotine, there is much debate about if someone can live for a few second after their head is severed. (because it's such a clean cut) Here (http://www.metaphor.dk/guillotine/Pages/Guillot.html) is an interesting report on it.


Yeah, I know about this. Some scientist during the French Revoultion told his friends he would blink for as long as he could after his head was cut off. He was able to do it for 10sec. But, I don't think they feel pain becuase of the clean cut and the shock.

[Tom]

I'm inclined to say that no, there's no such thing as "humane slaughter". Maybe if you define "humane" simply as "painless", that's a possibility. In theory, animals raised for food are treated well as long as they live and are killed painlessly. In fact, it doesn't always work out this way.

Jeremiah described ritual slaughter, which ideally causes little or no pain- but Irizary linked to that recent fiasco at that large Kosher slaughtering plant in Iowa. And conventional slaughter with stunning can go wrong too- remember that article ("They Die Piece By Piece"- in "The Washington Post" 3 or 4 years ago, I think) where cattle frequently weren't stunned properly before the slaughter process began?

In the book, "Portrait Of A Burger As A Young Calf", the author describes the slaughter of 3 or 4 cattle on the farms where they are raised or at a small slaughterhouse. Most of them drop as soon as they are shot in the head, but one lifts her head and must be shot a second time. And a co-worker of mine who lived on a farm told me that hog slaughter when he was a boy was pretty rough on the hogs. So errors and pain can happen even in small slaughter operations.

[mysteriouspoet]

Just because it's painless doesn't make it humane. You are still taking a life that isn't yours to take, just because, as someone here said, you want to eat their body.

I have a problem with people who raise animals for food, period. It doesn't matter how it's done. And yes, I have a problem with people who eat animals and this includes my family and closest friends, and the pain of that is sometimes very great.

[Tom]

Mysteriouspoet: I agree. (And I love your avatar.)

I usually argue much as you do when I'm trying to convince someone to go veg, but it's hard to get omnis to see this. So I often try to work within their own view and show them that even if they DO accept the idea of "humane slaughter" in theory, it doesn't necessarily work out that way in practice.

[Skylark]

As far as "humane" dairy and eggs, it's not the ideal, but it is an improvement over the worst forms of factory farming. I dislike free range and other humane forms of keeping cows and chickens in that it can legitimize using animals for more than what humans need, but far be it for me to wish the animals were in more pain and suffering.