Abattoir Practices and Animal Products Technology

3) Stunning by Means of Electricity

STUNNING BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY

• A low voltage alternating current is passed through the brain of animal, rendering it instantaneously unconscious in which state, it remains for about 5 minutes during which time it can be hoisted, removed to the bleeding section and bled.
• Different types of electrical stunning systems in use;
  • manually operated and
  • automatically operated, especially in pigs and poultry.
• The instrument that is most commonly employed resembles a pair of tongs.
• This is to make the animals unconscious before they are bled.
• Now mostly used for pigs, poultry, sheep and pigs.
• The great advantage of this method is that there is no squealing, struggling or kicking and no sound of a shot.
• The current causes massive depolarization of neurons in the brain, resulting in an epileptiform seizure.
• Electrical stunning was first introduced in the 1930s.
• But there is still a lack of knowledge on its efficiency in producing insensibility.
• It must be agreed that if certain requisites are not complied with the method may be inhumane, for the electrical current may produce a condition known as ‘missed shock’ in which the animal, though paralysed, is fully conscious.
• The electrical stunning may be regarded as efficacious and humane method in as much as it causes incoordination of the cerebral nerve cells and what may be aptly defined as a confusional state of the brain.