Is there a better way to slaughter chickens

[Export News Tasmania]

Killing them softly - is there a kinder way to kill a chook?
July 27, 2010 - 5:17PM
  
Free range and organic labels on a pack of thigh fillets might suggest the chicken had a better life – but they don’t tell you about the quality of its death.

Right now in Australia, the standard system for chicken slaughter starts when the birds are picked up from the farm, packed into crates and trucked to a processing plant. Here they’re transferred into a darkened room where they’re  hung upside down with their feet shackled  to a conveyer system that drags their heads though a long narrow tub. The tub has an electric current running through it which stuns them before their throats are cut by a rotating blade.

But there is an alternative that at least eliminates the distress of  the shackling process – it’s called controlled atmosphere stunning  and it involves using C02 to make the birds unconscious   while they’re still packed in crates – and before they’re shackled. The RSPCA is trying to persuade more chicken meat producers to switch to this method.
 
“CO2 stunning may not be optimal but at least it means the bird is unconscious when it’s shackled,” says Melina Tensen, the RSPCA’s Scientific Officer for Farm Animals.

Controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) also involves less manual handling of the birds which can result in painful broken bones –chickens grown rapidly to produce meat tend to have fragile legs, Tensen says.

Britain uses CAS to slaughter 75 per cent of turkeys and 25 per cent of chickens, yet only two  chicken processors in Australia are using it. The reason, according to Dr Andreas Dubs, executive director of the Australian Chicken Meat Federations, is that  "the jury is still out on whether CAS is better and chicken processors would be reluctant to rush into CAS without having clear evidence – and we can’t ask the birds."

He has a point –some animal welfare experts argue that the suffocating feeling as the CO2 begins to affect the birds makes it no less distressing than electrical stunning.

But there is a better way - a mixture of gases that may include argon/and or nitrogen. These gases are less distressing to birds than CO2, but also more expensive, says Tensen, which is probably why they aren't widely used in Australia.
 
In Australia around 461 million chickens are killed each year to feed our appetite for thighs, breasts and legs, and a new RSPCA initiative is trying to improve their welfare. Chicken meat will soon be  able to carry the RSPCA’s Paw of Approval if its producers comply with the organisation’s  Meat Chicken Standards. This means providing  more space for chickens raised in sheds to move around, bales of hay for them to peck at and perch on, and a minimum of four hours of continuous darkness so they can rest. Currently chickens raised in sheds are kept in dim light but with only one hour of darkness – brighter light would encourage them to move around more, resulting in a healthier chicken with fewer leg problems, Tensen explains.

But when it comes to slaughtering chickens, the RSPCA standard only goes as far as encouraging growers to use controlled atmosphere slaughter and doesn’t make it a requirement to earn the Paw of Approval.

"It’s a hard one," Tensen admits. "There are very few processors in Australia that have CAS systems so if we make CAS a requirement it may result in birds being trucked very long distances  to be slaughtered which is a welfare issue in itself. It’s a process – we have to set the bar somewhere and then gradually raise it.”

The Paw of Approval label will begin to appear on chicken meat later this year. It already appears on some eggs and on some pork products which comply with the RSPCA’s standards.

Does it matter to you how a chicken is slaughtered?

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/blogs/chew-on-this/killing-them-softly--is-there-a-kinder-way-to-kill-a-chook/20100726-10ri7.html