How do farmers kill the cattle to make meat?

Question

i am so curious i found a youtube video but i just CAN'T watch it without being a vegitarian the rest of my life!!!

Answer 1

stun it, then bleed it out

Answer 2

well the farmers dont usually do it themselves, they sent them out, but the animal is usually stunned so they dont feel anything and their neck is cut, it is fast and painless

Answer 3

The piston to the head.

You obviously want to know what happens when they die.

When I was young we slaughtered hogs for meat. Calves at times too. One bullet well placed between the eyes and a living animal falls as if all function has ceased and it has. It is at the that moment no longer living. The eyes are sightless. The mouth slack. The legs stiffen. The nerves cause it to quiver a bit and it is still forever. It can be quit shocking to see just how fragile life is and how fast it can be gone. It is not pleasant to behold. A poorly placed shot and the animal runs and flops and suffers greatly. That is much worse and to be avoided.

Remember this if you choose to watch the video. Everything after the blow to the head is performed on something that has no life left. There is really no reason for you to see it. It will not bring you any peace of mind.

Answer 4

Farmers do it humanely by quickly slitting the throat. Unfortunately, most farmers do not slaughter their own animals. Cattle, poultry, and fish are raised in mass amounts and are sent to slaughter houses, where they are slaughtered using machinery, where things often go wrong, causing a terrible death. Workers in slaughter houses also face dangers. many of these workers die in accidents involving the machinery. These things are getting better, though. The meat production companies have had so much bad publicity that their forced to make things better for the animals.

Vegetarianism is good because by damaging the meat economy, they will produce less meat. Then they will raise less animals, which makes it easier to handle the animals, which makes it easier to make their lives better.

Hope i helped :]

Answer 5

umm, they will stick a cattle prod up their bum and zap them (my vegan bro told me that) or they will cut their heads off and hang them upside down, or they hang them upside down and slit their throats.

try and see if theres anything on chicken farms. thats gross

Answer 6

On the farm, we always shot it between the eyes from straight on.  They drop instantly to the ground.  Then you slit the jugular to bleed it out.  Even tho they are brain dead the  heart continues to pump most of the blood out.  Then hoist it up by its hind legs, get the intestines out.  At this point you can hang it for aging, or after skinning.  Then skin it for the hide.   Half it , easy to do nowadays with a sawsall.  Then you just keep breaking it down.  Wrap the portions the way you want, mark the packages, and freeze.  

BTW,  fresh liver, heart, tongue, tailhead,  are no doubt the best eating you will find.  

Of course, if you are a vegetarian, that is helpful.  It does keep the demand lower and therefore the price of meat down at the stores.  

PS Cows eat most of their waking hours.  8-10 hours/day.  While lions and wolves have to eat only a cple times/week.  The cows are designed to convert grasses and vegetation to meat.  While meat eaters do not have to waste a lot of time eating and chewing.  lol

Answer 7

In our rural neighborhood we call a farm slaughter guy out (that's if you don't know how or don't want to bother with it yourself).  He comes out with a special truck.  One shot between the eyes...for cows and pigs... he then slits the throat and uses a wench to drag the carcass to the truck and up to finish skinning, gutting and cutting the carcass in half.  He then takes it to the butcher shop of our choice.  We tell the shop how to cut up the meat.  When they're done we pick up the meat cut, wrapped, and frozen.

Answer 8

Go to Peta Website and watch the section on Meet your Meat. Alot of animals are killed humanely and some are not. Depending on the size of the animal, they are usually stunned (not all the time though), shackled and their throats are cut...

Answer 9

gotta concur with jakesdad and ashley. (from one who once worked in the chicago stockyards)

Answer 10

Ok CC... Whatever information you want is available out there on the web.  If you feel compelled to watch a video about an animal being slaughtered, then you will no doubt have unpleasant emotions of the actions be portrayed.  If you want to consume meat as part of your diet, then stay away from the videos and websites that are going to portray these actions.  Often times they portray them in a cruel and ugly environment to sway your emotions.  

If you feel that you have some ethical reasons for abstaining from meat due to videos that someone else produced then that will have to be your call.  Animals are raised on farms for production of meat, milk, eggs, etc.  These animals are often raised with plenty of food, water, veterinary care as needed and lead a good life.  It is a fact that they will be used for food.  Animals are taken to a processing plant where they are killed instantly and because they do not have a thought process, they do not have the ability to realize what is happening to them.  For the next five minutes or so after the animal is put down, the muscles will continue to contract until the natural contractions of the muscles and body stop.  The blood is drained from the body at this time.  

Animals are grown and cared for as they are a part of our diets providing meat and many, many by products that are a part of our everyday lives.  If you do not like these videos, I would urge you not to watch them as they can portray a poor image to someone who does not understand what they are watching.  Talk to a farmer, meat manager at your local store or call someone with your state university to ask questions that you may have in this matter.

Answer 11

One must be careful and always look at the point of view of the person/group that is shooting the video.  If it is an animal rights group they will try to paint the worst possible picture out there, in the meat industry it wouldn’t be that hard killing animals can be a messy business.  If it is a State’s Beef Commission then they will try to show how good the steaks taste and how good they look.  A good example of this is when an animal rights group went to a chicken processing facility.  If one did the math and looked at the percentages the chicken killers were 99.99% effective.  Looking at a comparable time scale that would be out of a whole year (525600 minutes) about 52.56 minutes were bad.  Those are pretty good odds not too much else can claim those odds.

Having toured a meat packing facility I can’t say exactly how the cattle are killed, we weren’t allowed to watch it, but I was shown the device that is used.  It shoots a stainless steel bolt into the cattle’s skull (and of course brain.)  This will instantly kill the animal.  What happens afterwards could be considered a little gross, which is to be expected because the blood, guts, skin/hide, hooves and head are removed from the animal. And then the carcass is chopped up into the steaks and roasts that we are mostly familiar with.

The question of whether or not to become a vegetarian shouldn’t be made on just viewing one film/video that could be taken as propaganda.  The same logic could be applied to not becoming a vegetarian after watching a Emeril Lagasse Food Network (or TLC or whatever channel he was on) special.  

(Encarta Dictionary:English (North America) defines propaganda as 1. publicity to promote something and 2. misleading publicity  Both definitions could apply here)

You need to look a little deeper into the issue and get to the facts, after I went to an exhibit called Our Body: The Universe Within, I really wasn’t that hungry and was a little nauseous, seeing actual dead, dissected bodies can do that to a person.  But as soon as I smelled the aromas coming from a restaurant my appetite returned.

Answer 12

sweety that's the point...watch the video....if you can't watch it then how can you eat it!?! these cows are murdered so that you can have one meal! to you it's just a meal but to that cow it's it's life....

Answer 13

hi.I am peruvian and I see how is this,firtly we can to see a fat cattle,because this give more meat and this meat more money.Soon their catch the cattle and with a knife they puyin its neck,but this is from up,when a cattle is standing,soon they put out the skin,this is good for to make shoes, wallets... the cattler know to cut everypiece for to sale and to cooking

Answer 14

As quickly and humanely as possible.  

4-H Member

Answer 15

Rule of nature is "one living thing depends on the others" meaning herbivorous eat grasses, grasses are also living things. If grasses are not eaten by animals, grasses will grow out of control. If herbivorous are not killed and eaten by carnivorous, herbivorous will grow out of control. And so on.

Human is basically omnivorous, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Slaughter of animals is carried out in many ways. By severing their head by a sward; by Sikh community in India, Halal system followed by Muslims, and most human (considered by experts) is Jewish way by serening nerves supplying blood to the brain.

I suggest don't see it. You will not like it.

Answer 16

Two previous responder covered it.

Large scale slaughter house. Pneumatic piston rod to skull, acts the same as a bullet, kills them instantly, heart still beating, then throat slit and bleed out.

Electrical performed as well.

Smaller farms and some foreign countries, bullet between the eyes.

FYI

The animal's legs still kick even after the head is cut off.

Freshly slaughtered muscle meat cut sections still pulsate.

Answer 17

Knockers. There is actually a job call a knocker. where you knock the cow between the eyes really hard with something like a sledge hammer, but better for cattle. That kills them instantly, then thier throat is cut and they are hung to bleed out.

Answer 18

It is done by a pneumatic tool that fires a piston at the skull sending fragments in to the brain.

Answer 19

Read the book "skinny _itch."  (Last word starts with a "b") You will become a vegan for the rest of your life and never eat cows or any other animals again.  Our human bodies were not made to ingest the flesh of other animals or their byproducts like milk and eggs.  From the corporate feed lot to the horrify killing floors not to mention the trip to the slaughter house these animals suffer extreme torture.  That fear and utter terror are then passed into our systems when we eat this meat.  I agree with you!