Animal Science 3: Slaughter & Processing

Course Overview

• Animal Science 3 is titled "Slaughter of Animals and Animal Products Processing".
• The course provides detail on inspecting live animals, slaughtering, proper flaying, dressing poultry, fabrication, carcass evaluation, and meat processing.
• It's worth 3 units with no prerequisites.
• The course consists of 2 hours of lecture and 3 hours of laboratory work per week.

Topic Outline

• Introduction
• Selection of Animals
• Handling Animals Before Slaughter/Dressing
• Rules and Regulations Governing Meat Inspection in the Philippines
• Factors Affecting Carcass Yield
• Processing Plant
• Slaughter Procedures
• Fabrication and Identification of Wholesale and Retail Cuts of Livestock / Poultry Carcasses
• Products Processing
• Animal Products-Borne Diseases

Introduction to Animal Products Processing

• Animal products provide 16% of calories and 55% of protein in the global food supply.
• Meat and milk are primary contributors of animal products to calories and protein.
• The main sources are cattle, buffalo, swine, sheep, goats, horses, and poultry.
• Milk products mainly come from cows, buffalo, goats, and sheep.
• Egyptians preserved meat through salting and sun drying, while Romans used ice and snow.
• Nicholas Appert, known as the "father of canning," discovered hermetic sealing in 1809 and started canning meat.
• Large-scale meat freezing occurred during World War I, with antibiotic preservation, freeze-drying, and irradiation during World War II.
• Slaughtering and meat inspection began during the Spanish regime by royal decree on May 31, 1828.
• Meat inspection fell under a veterinarian from the United States Federal Meat Inspection during the American rule.

Importance of Animal Products Processing

• Processing ensures food safety and quality, eliminating pathogens through cooking, pasteurization, and refrigeration.
• Regulatory frameworks (Meat Inspection Act, Wholesome Meat Act) exist to maintain safety standards.
• The animal processing industry contributes to the economy by creating jobs and income.
• The industry includes roles like livestock buyers, federal inspectors, butchers, and quality control supervisors.
• It's valued at over $358 billion annually in the U.S.
• Byproducts increase profitability and livestock production and processing aid economic development.
• Animal products provide essential nutrients like proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals.

Importance of Nutritional Benefits and Byproducts

• Processing enhances nutritional value through products like cheese and yogurt from milk.
• Processed products contribute to balanced diets and combat malnutrition.
• Processing allows use of byproducts (blood meal, bone meal, feathers) for animal feeds, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals.
• Byproduct utilization reduces waste and increases economic viability.

Definition of key Terms in Animal Processing

• Artificial casing is synthetic material used for stuffing sausages, like plastic casing.
• Average Live Weight refers to the weight of the animal before it is slaughtered.
• Carcass evaluation refers to the assessment of the value of an animal.
• Cold Slaughter is the slaughtering of double dead animals.
• Cold or cool smoking applies smoke to meat products without heat above 38°C (100°F).
• Comminution involves cutting meat into small particles.
• Condemned carcasses are marked as unfit for human consumption but usable as feed stuff.
• Curing adds salt with or without nitrate/nitrite and sugar with the aim of lengthening shelf life, plus enhancing the color, odor and flavor.
• DFD means dark, firm, and dry meat, specifically referring to beef.
• Dressing is the removal of animal parts that are not meant for human consumption.
• Dressing percent is the percent yield of the carcass, worked out as carcass weight divided by slaughter weight and multiplied by 100.
• Fabrication is the act of cutting a carcass into standard wholesale and retail cuts.
• Fasting involves withholding feed (but not water) from the animal before slaughter in ad libitum basis
• Fleece and Wool includes the hairs that are obtained from goats and sheep, respectively.
• Flaying/Skinning is the act of removing the hide (examples: goat, cattle, carabao).
• Food Animal – any domestic livestock that is killed for the purpose of human consumption.
• Freezing means subjecting meat to a temperature of -17°C (28°F).
• Fresh Meat has not undergone significant physical, microbial, or chemical alterations.
• Giblets: organs including heart, liver, and gizzard.
• Glycogen, also known as animal starch, functions as an energy reserve inside the animal muscle tissue.
• Grading classifies heterogeneous goods into homogenous groupings on the basis of characteristics.
• Hot boned meat is deboned before rigor mortis develops.
• Hot Meat – meat from food animal and poultry slaughtered clandestinely and sold to public.
• Loin eye area/rib eye area denotes the cross-sectional area of longissimus dorsi muscle of pork/beef.
• Marbling is the intermingling of lean and fat in the muscles, also called intramuscular fat or seam fat.
• Meat inspector – A trained and appointed officer or deputized by the National Meat Inspection Services (NMIS).
• Offal includes by-products, organs and tissues other than meat from the food animal which may or may not be edible.
• Passed for rendering is carcasses or parts of carcasses that can be converted into animal feed after sufficient heat treatment.
• Passed for sterilization includes carcasses or parts of carcasses sterilized by steaming or boiling in an open kettle as inspected and passed for food.
• Post abattoir handling means handling of meat in meat inspection from when the meat is prepared and leaves the abattoir.
• Primal cuts are pork cuts that include the loin, ham, belly and shoulder.
• PSE is pale, soft, and exudative meat.
• Reactor – an animal that shows indications or evidence of disease after a specific test application.
• Red meat comes from cattle, swine, sheep, goats.
• Residues are foreign substances remaining in the carcass that are hazardous to human health.
• Retail cuts are small meat cuts prepared for the table with minimal cutting and trimming.
• Ribbing includes cutting of the carcass between the 12th and 13th rib to expose the rib eye area.
• Rigor Mortis means the stiffening of muscle after the animal's death, the consequence of muscle contraction due to stress plus poor handling during slaughtering.
• Singeing involves applying a flame to a carcass to burn off hairs and kill surface microorganisms.
• Stunning renders animals unconscious prior to bleeding.
• Tripe includes the reticulum, rumen, and omasum of compound stomach animals.
• Wessand means the esophagus (including the muscles that surround it) from cattle and/or carabaos.
• Wholesale cuts denotes meat cuts handled in bulk, generally requiring additional cutting before being readied for the table.

Basic requirements for Slaughtering animals for slaughter

• Meat should possess all charateristics for products being made

Basic requirements in slaughtering

• The cleanliness of the meat produced
• The hygiene of production
• The efficiency of meat inspection
• The adequacy of meat preservation

Classifications of Slaughterhouses in the Philippines

• AAA: Meat processed here is eligible for sale in any market in and out of the country as facility has adequate facilities and procedures
• AA: Meat processed here is eligible for sale in any market in the Philippines as facility has adequate facilities and procedures
• A: Meat processed here is eligible for sale only in the city or municipality in which the plant is located. as facility has minimum adequacy of facilities and procedures

Butchers' requirements with regards to attire

• Butchers are recommended to wear clean clothes with lab coats, aprons, gloves, and appropriate footwear to protect fresh meat.

Selecting Animals for Slaughter

Factors to consider

• Age: Swine should be 6 - 12 months old, Cattle and carabaos should be 3 years or younger, and goats should be 1 year
• Sex: barrows and gilts are best for curing, young boars less than 200 days old can be used, meat from sows is tough and may be fishy in ordor
• Size: Hogs should be 80 - 110 kgs, Cattle and carabaos should be 300 - 450 kgs, Goat and sheep should be 25 - 30 kg, and Poulty should be 1.5 - 2.0 kg
• Degree of fatness: 30 - 405% fat should be present
• Health: must be substantially healthy
• Loin eye area: wide loin eye areas in pigs indicates a high lean cut and low-fat cut yields
• Meat yield: Leaner carcasses have a better carcass cutting yield compared to fatter carcasses of similar weight

Key Considerations

• The most favorable meat used animals to be slaughtered command higher cost weight

Handling Animals Before Slaughter/Dressing Details

• Aim to safeguard the quality of meat
• Animals should rested to completely develop acidity so bacteria won't invade the system from the intestinal tract
• Exhausted animals yields dark, fiery meat due to decreased hemoglobin and muscle myoglobin
• Sugar and molasses helps maintain glycogen for better acidification of the carcass
• Animal detention and rest in lairage should be 6 - 24 hours and not more than 36 hours
• Double check animal health

Regulations of Transporters

• Must use appropriate transport containers, techniques, space and adequate ventilation to minimize stress and discomfort of the animals
• Maintain health and safety standards during transit as well provide assistance to any animals that are down, injured, or in distress.
• Must adhere to Legal standards
• Must have proper training and certification on how to handle animals safely and humanely
• Transport vehicles must be in good condition, properly ventilated, and temperature controlled
• Overcrowding must be avoided to ensure security during the journey

Managing Transport

• Slaughter should be carried out humanely
• One person should be designated as an animal welfare supervisor who has the main responsibility
• Unload at slaughterhouse/lairage ASAP, most importantly during warmer weather conditions.
• Schedule vehicles when possible

Transport Cerificates

• Certificates should be accompanied by a transport certificate
• Unloading bay should be well design to facilitate the movement of animals and should be well-lit
• Ramp angle must be lowered to a minimum and ramps need to be fitted with lateral battens
• Unloading and moving animals must have no harm or violence to them
• Casualites should be moved immediately

Fasting Animals

• Reduces content which reduces carcuss contamination during dressing
• There must be sufficient rest as well as cleanliness to animals before slaughter

Republic Act No. 8485

• Known as the "Animal Welfare Act of 1998", promotes animal welfare in the Philippines via regulating animal facilities
• A certificate of registration from the Bureau of Animal Industry is needed to operate animal facilities.
• The Director of the Bureau must supervise the transport and maintenance.
• Adequate and sanitary facilities along with sufficient food and water must be provided for transported animals.
• Cruelty to animals will be penalized even if the transporter has a permit.
• A Committee on Animal Welfare will issue rules for the law's implementation.
• Torturing or maltreating animals is unlawful, except in instances such as religious rituals or disease control, which will be done through humane procedures.
• Penalties for any person who violate this act includes jail time or fine

Ante-Mortem Inspection

• The Ante-mortem Inspection Unit is responsible for monitoring the health of food animals' and ensures proper animal welfare
• Inspection aims to screen ill animals and prevent contamination.
• Serves to allow for identification of suspected animals with abnormal behavior - this allows for diseased animals who could contaminate facilities to be intercepted.

Ante and Post Mortem

• Post-mortem exam is an important tool when looking for what to do to manage and control further future cases
• Examine as soon as possible due to speed of decomposition

Philippine standards

• Governed the sanitary standards for meat production, processing, and trade.
• Meat must be the fresh, chilled, or frozen edible parts of carcasses from various food animals
• Standards asses meat quality including; lean-fat-bone ratio, animal age, intramuscular fat, grading system
• Sanitation is important

Cold Preservation of products

• Primary chilling is completed when the warmest point of the carcass has reached 7 degrees C (3°C for edible offal)
• Quick chilling has its problems, cold shortening being the most common. For long periods it should be lower without the risk of freezing must be used 

Factors Affecting Carcass Yield

• Carcass yield indicates dressing percentage (dressed carcass weight/live weight] × 100) but is influenced by these: size of alimentary tract, slaughtering procedures, skin mass, distribution of fat,
• Avg, dressing depends on parts of the world

Boning and Trimming

• Boning is the process of removing bone to create boneless cuts
• Hot Boning takes place before rigor mortis while Cold Boning occurs after chilling
• A boning knife must be sharp
• Trimming removes fat and tissue

Fabricating Meat

• Meat Fabrication refers to cutting, boning and portioning meat
• Meat should be separated based on tenderness
• Must be cut across the brain, and cheap parts separated fro expensive

Skeletal system parts

• Seven - Shoulder arm bone, shoulder blade bone, rig bone, loin T-Bone, breast/spare rig bone, and leg/round bone.

Wholesale Cuts of Beef

• Classified into either - front quater, or hindquater

Carcass Wholesale cuts of Pork

• Wholesales of pork is made of 4 main parts - Shoulder , Ham, Loin, or Side

Two Classifications of Meat

• Either be can classified as red or white meat - Red (pork, beef, carabeef, chevon, venison,veal, lamb) v. White (fish and poultry)

Grading Meat and Poultry

• Meat and poulty are based of its colors and firmnesses

Types of Slaughter

• Stunning is the two forms, is when you use either a captive bolt pistol or penetrating free-bullet gun or firearm.
• Chemical stunning is the term applied to the use of carbon dioxide to make animals Immobile before bleeding.
• Bleeding is to sever the blood vessels of the neck and let out blood.
• Skeening includes cutting of the skin around the leg to expose and loosen the tendon of the hock for use as a means of hanging the carcass

Slaughter Inspection

• The slaughtering process requires parts of the animal body to be assembled for inspection are the tongue, head, pluck, liver and paunch.

Post Slaughter Special Measures

Carcasses and edible offal that are considered fit for human use are stamped as “INSPECTED" and/or “PASSED” prior to consignment to markets. Unfit materials or those found unwholesome are marked as “CONDEMNED” and destroyed.

Humane Slaughter

Various livestock requires unique procedures.

• Swine: recommend 3 seconds of stunning @ 1.25-1.3 amps. Then after 15 seconds perform bleeding for 6 minutes. Water should be around 60-71 °C for about 3-5 minutes
• Cattle & Caraboas: recommend stunning currents for 3 seconds , Cattle = 1.2 ampere, Calves = 1.0 ampere. Then Sticking be done for 15 seconds.
• Poultry: Requires Restraining first for then stunning + Bleeding & Water @ 56°C for 1 to 2 minutes. Defeather

Fabrication and identification of Wholesale and Retail cuts of livestock / Poultry carcasses

• Beef, lamb and pork goes through a meat chart before be cut

Products processing

• All meats, poultry and product have a different time, tempature and amount of ingriedents to yield the propper type

Animal Products-Borne Diseases

• Animals can be a vector for diseases that pose a threat to humans.
• BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) -Fatal brain-degenerative disease
• Clostridium botulinum - Microorganism (it grows without air) which forms spores that exist over a wide range of temperatures.
• Clostridium perfringens - a disease from intestines that could spread if one isnt carefull
• E. coli -a bacterial infection and is caused from body waste.
• Listeria monocytogenes -Caused by soil or contamination of foods
• Salmonella Caused by bacteria with 1,300 types known. One of the most severe infections
• Staphylococcus- Caused by aerobic organism
• Trichinosis - A parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked meat, usually pork, infected with Trichinella larvae.