04: Slaughter & Post-Mortem Inspection

Method of death in slaughter plants

Exsanguination

What has to happen before an animal is exsanguinated

Stunning; renders the animal insensible to stimuli without drugs

Common methods of stunning

• Trauma

• Electrocution

• Gas anoxia

Primary method of stunning for ruminants

Captive bolt

Primary method of stunning for swine and poultry

Electrocution

Situation that is an exception and the animal is not stunned before exsanguination

Ritual slaughter

Specie that is exempt from humane handling requirements during slaughter

Poultry; failure to stun before slaughter is only a problem if it is high in number

Processing machine that allows for restraint of cattle, forward movement, and consistent positioning

Conveyor belt with a center restrainer that brings the cattle from a dark room to a light room

When cattle move from dark to light, what do they do

Reflexively lift their head

Steps of dirty prep

• Remove inedible products

• Remove hide, hair, feathers

• Eviscerate

• Decapitate

Possible postmortem inspection dispositions

• USDA passed

• USDA condemned

• Passed for heating

• Passed for cooking

• Passed for refrigeration

• Passed for comminution

Parts that a slaughtered animal is split into

• Head

• Viscera

• Carcass

Common location in the head for Taenia

Masseter muscles

What is the tongue checked for

Woody tongue

Ground beef v hamburger beef

Ground beef is carcass muscle while hamburger may be ground beef with tongue or heart

What are the bile ducts checked for

Liver flukes

What is the liver checked for

General indications of health

What is the ruminoreticular junction checked for

Hardware disease

What is the diaphragm checked for

Adhesions or parasitic indicators

Organ that is not removed with the viscera and needs to be inspected separately

Kidneys

Sign of septicemia in hogs

Thromboembolic showering

Respiratory disease is common in cattle, how is it determined if a carcass is condemned

If it is acute and the animal is febrile it is condemned. If it is chronic and there are adhesions there will be a partial condemnation

Pathognomonic lesion for erysipelas in swine

Diamond skin disease

What happens if a carcass is icteric

Condemned, sign of systemic disease

Conditions that might lead a healthy cow to have yellow fat

If it is grass/forage fed or if it is a Jersey/Guernsey

What happens to a carcass with lymphoma

LSA is by definition a systemic disease, so the carcass is condemned

Why are injection site lesions such a problem

The tissue needs to be trimmed and there is now a concern for drug residues

What determines WDT for an animal

The class it exists in, not necessarily only the specie

Scheduled drug residue testing

Minimum number of samples are randomly taken from seemingly healthy animals

Inspector generated drug residue testing

PHV orders testing because of specific concerns

Type of drug residue testing that is more common

Inspector generated

How is residue testing done

Kidney inhibition swab: try to grow a bacteria that is highly sensitive to AB in the presence of a swab of the kidney

Classes of animals that most commonly have drug residue violations

Dairy cows and veal calves