SLAUGHTERING OF STOCK

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26491, 4 August 1951, Page 2

SLAUGHTERING OF STOCK

STUNNING MADE COMPULSORY

NEW REGULATIONS GAZETTED

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 3. Provision for the Compulsory stunning of cattle and pigs before they are slaughtered, so mat they are insensible to pain until they die, is made in the Slaughter of Stock Regulations, 1951, which were gazetted last evenf*he regulations state that no person shall slaughter any head of cattle or pigs in any abattoir or meat export slaughterhouse unless the animal has first been so stunned that it is instantaneously rendered insensible to pain and will remain so until death supervenes from the operation of bleeding by the method used in the meat production industry. In the case of cattle other than bobby calves, the stunning must be done by means of a mechanicallyoperated instrument, and in the case of pigs by an electrically or mech-anically-operated instrument. The instruments must be of the captive bolt type. In the case of bobby calves, the stunning may be done manually in the manner usual in the meat industry. No sheep or lamb shall be slaughtered unless it is slaughtered so that it is instantaneously killed by the operation of severance of the blood vessel of the neck and severance of the spinal cord. The regulations state that nothing in them shall be deemed to prohibit the slaughter of any stock by the Jewish method for the food of Jews, so long as the operation is carried out in a type of casting pen approved by the Minister of Agriculture.