A total of 44 beef plants 27 pork plants were audited by two different restaurant audit systems in both the U.S. and Canada. All of the cattle were stunned with captive bolt and religious slaughter was not observed. In 2007 91% of the beef plants and 92% of the pork plants had either excellent or acceptable scores on all of the numerically scored criteria on the AMI guideline (Tables 1-2). Unfortunately, two beef plants (5%) received an automatic failure rating for cutting a leg off a sensible animal and poking cows in the anus area with an electric prod. The plant that had started dressing procedures on a sensible animal was a small plant that processed less than 50 cattle per hour. They had no training program to inform their employees that there is a ZERO TOLERANCE for the practice in the AMI guidelines. The other plant where abusive electric prod use was observed was a large cow slaughter plant.

Tables 3 through 7 show the scores for each numerically scored variables of percentage of cattle stunned on the first shot, percentage insensible on the bleed rail, percentage vocalizing, percentages electric prodded, and percentage falling. Overall plants processing fed beef had better scores than cow plants. All of the fed beef plants passed the audits on vocalization and electric prod use. There was one truly outstanding, wonderful large cow plant. It was an older facility and they had worked hard on removing all the little distractions that make animals balk. The line speed was over 200 cattle per hour. Their scores were stun 100%, insensibility 100%, electric prod 1%, falling 0%, and vocalization 2%. Their line was kept completely full with Holstein Cows. To summarize the 2007 beet audits; the auditors saw the best cow plant in the last five years and the absolutely worst beef plant. The excellent performance in the old cow plant was due to good management. The shocking cutting off of the leg of a sensible animal was caused by management’s failure to train their employees. The Humane Society of the U.S. did an undercover investigation of shocking abuse of dairy cows with a forklift. The atrocious practices in this plant are a good example of the problems that occur in plants that are not part of a strict customer auditing program.

Pork Summary

The restaurant auditing system is now in its 8th year and it is a mature program. The extremely bad treatment of animals observed in two beef plants show that vigilance must never be relaxed.

^* The worst plant had a stunning score of 91% due to a group of excited wild cattle. All 21 beef plants with a line speed of over 150 cattle per hour passed BOTH the stunning and insensibility audits.

^* The small plant with a line speed of less than 50 per hour had very poorly trained employees. They had a sensible beef animal on the rail and failed to restun it before cutting of the front leg. This was an automatic audit failure.

^*Two cow slaughter plants had vocalization scores of 8% and 7%. At one cow plant, vocalization was caused by electric prods and at the other, vocalization occurred when a head restraint was applied to hold the head for stunning.

^*A cow slaughter plant had a 44% electric prod score and an automatic audit failure when a plant employee poked two cows in the anal area with an electric prod.

^*This plant had a 2% falling score and no reason was given.

^*All seven plants had two large Butina CO2 stunning systems where the pigs are moved into the chamber in groups. The single file race is eliminated. Each CO2 chamber handled 650 pigs per hour or less and had plenty of capacity.

^*An untrained employee tapped 19% of the pigs on the back with the electric prod.

^*This plant had a sensible pig on the rail. It was handled correctly by the plant and re-stunned before dressing procedures were started.

^*One of these plants was running more than 1000 pigs per hour on a single restrainer and they probably slowed the line down to obtain a 0% score. Most other plants ran 850 per hour or less on a single restrainer and were capable of getting a passing score at their normal line speed.

^*Five plants that used electric stunning were not included because vocalization was not scored with the 2007 version of the AMI guideline.

^*Animal slipped and fell on the truck unloading dock.

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