Can horse slaughter ever be humane?

MagicMelon said:
I dont believe any slaughter house is humane. The animals (whatever they are - cows, sheep, horses, pigs etc.) are very scared in the situation. Anytime you round up animals like that in such a situation is extremely stressful for them and unpleasant. My OH has to go into slaughter houses sometimes due to his line of work, he's very pro-meat but even he admits they're ghastly places where he firmly believes the animals are scared and almost know they're going to die. The fact that the animals are squashed into lorries beforehand for god knows how many hours just increases their stress levels. I honestly believe the ONLY way you could ever say an animal was 100% humanely slaughtered would be if you had it out in the field as usual and shot it from a distance killing it instantly. It would know nothing and have had no stress up to that point. Obviously this is impossible therefore I would never say slaughter, no matter how well its controlled will ever be humane.
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A total load of rubbish!
 
MagicMelon said:
What exactly is rubbish? Perhaps you'd like to give your opinion as opposed to just slagging mine off in such a manner.
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Your opinion is based on hearsay and without experience.
I have regularly over the last 40yrs been in slaughter houses and in that time they have changed out of all recognition . in all modern ones nowadays the animals in lairage are totally unaware of whats going on the other side of the door. They are on the whole relaxed with normal behaviour the ones that may exhibit anxiety would have done anyhow by being confined even at home. When the time comes they follow each other easily in the races and know nothing of whats coming (how could they unless we put human experience in their heads). They DO NOT EVER see what happens to the animal in front. There are two very good reasons it is so. 1, you cannot maintain throughput if you are forever having to push animals 2, Stress in the animal pre slaughter can cause issues with the carcass quality and even rejection .

I hate to say it but there is so much more stress for the animal if sent to market ! It is change that stresses animals not the fear of death as they have no concept of it coming.
 
Actually as I pointed out my OH has spent a lot of time in slaughter houses due to the nature of his job, so I do hear of his first hand experiences and what he sees simply from watching what goes on for hours on end. I dont have to be in a slaughter house myself to understand that animals have more intelligence and senses that IMO you believe them to have. Evidence has shown animals can "mourn" others who have died, elephants for example have been seen to exhibit this. I'm not saying this applies in this case, Im trying to suggest that animals can sense things that we cannot. I do believe they can sense death, they can smell blood. They'll know thats not a good thing, even if they're not thinking about dying - their stress levels are bound to increase. I believe that far more research needs to go on into this to truly dictate how "humane" is it overall. Of course, they are far improved from what they used to be but thats not to say they cant be continually improved with better research. I dont believe the slaughter house is necessarily the worst part of the system though - having seen how many pig farms keep their animals, there's nothing humane about them IMO.
 
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