THE HUMANE HAND:

A resource for developing careful and confident livestock handlers in meat plants.

Video of a daily 3-piece break of a captive bolt

TRAINING TIP:

This cleaning should be completed after every day that a captive bolt is used to maintain optimal performance.

RESEARCH UPDATES

This month’s featured research…

Assessment of United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Service Humane Handling Enforcement Actions: 2018–2020

Written by: Karly N. Anderson, Ashlynn A. Kirk, and Kurt D. Vogel

Federally inspected slaughter establishments in the United States must adhere to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and regulations that enforce it. Failure to comply with this law results in a Humane Handling Enforcement Action (HHEA) issued by the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Service (USDA FSIS). The objective of this study was to systematically analyze and describe HHEAs issued between 2018 and 2020.

	2018	2019	2020	2018-2020
Total # of HHEAs	109	85	99	293

Most of the HHEAs were related to:

Mechanical stunning (captive bolt & gunshot) 64% (188/293)

More specifically, mechanical stunning of

cattle 40% (117 of 293)
swine 24% (71/293)

Majority of reasons for mechanical stun failure across all species were:

Not clearly described in the enforcement action letters

Most (of the reasons described) were related to:

Placement of stun 39% (68 of 213)

Take home messages:

Addressing these issues through improved training and research would help to reduce the total number of HHEAs.
Additional detail in reporting the events that result in HHEAs from USDA FSIS would aid in guiding corrective actions on an industry-wide scale.

Link to article: https://academic.oup.com/tas/article/7/1/txac153/6862005

'MEAT' THE TEAM

You may be thinking, do these people really know what they are talking about?

Ashlynn Kirk, Program Manager

Ashlynn’s passion for animal welfare began with raising beef cattle on her family’s farm in central Wisconsin and grew through her formal education in animal behavior and biology. She accumulated knowledge in meat quality assurance by working in one of the largest beef processing facilities in the United States. During that time, she completed humane handling audits, wrote policies and standard operating procedures, and executed special projects to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. As the HHI Program Manager, Ashlynn applies her unique and specialized skillset to develop workshop content, with a special interest in live animal demonstrations and the development of user-friendly documents for robust systematic approaches to animal welfare.

TUITION REIMBURSEMENT

Tuition reimbursement is available for people associated with slaughter plants in Wisconsin.

How to confirm if you qualify:

If you qualify, you will not be billed for the workshops focused on:

Effective and Humane Restraint and Stunning
Building a Robust Systematic Approach to Animal Welfare

UPCOMING EVENTS

Humane Handling and Stunning Workshop: Learn about animal head anatomy, accurate stun placement, animal behavior, and how to maintain and repair stunning equipment!

Feb. 1-2
Feb. 8-9

Building a Robust Systematic Approach Workshop: Create a humane handling plan that is specific to your establishment!

Feb. 29-Mar. 1
Mar. 7-8
Mar. 14-15

*For more information, please visit go.uwrf.edu/hhi or email us at hhi@uwrf.edu

To Register Click Here