Rationale
The restraint of the food animal, the ritual cut and the post-cut management, must all be done in a manner to prevent avoidable suffering to the food animal during ritual slaughter, without pre-slaughter stunning, since the time to reach unconsciousness without prior stunning can be variable between food animal species and even between individuals within a species. The outcome is for the food animal to achieve unconsciousness as rapidly as possible.
What this means for your food business
To help you understand these requirements, specific criteria and examples are outlined below. The examples are not exhaustive but help illustrate the intent of the requirement and offer ideas on what you could do to comply. Key terms throughout the text have been hyperlinked to the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) glossary.
Subsection 144 (a) Restraint of the food animal for ritual slaughter
- You ensure that the restraint of the food animal does not cause the food animal any avoidable suffering or injury while at the same time it results in optimal control of movement of the animal, especially of the head, in order that the ritual cut can be performed as competently and rapidly as possible by the ritual slaughterer.
Examples
- You ensure total time of restraint before the incision is kept to a minimum
- You ensure that all methods of restraint or all restraint equipment are used competently and are appropriate for the species of animal slaughtered ritually
- You ensure all mammals to be slaughtered without pre-slaughter stunning are restrained in the upright, more natural position to prevent avoidable suffering or injury to the animals
- For additional information, refer to the guidance material on:
Subsections 144 (b) Requirements for the ritual knife cut
- The ritual slaughterer must have the necessary competency and qualifications to perform the ritual cut correctly to achieve death as rapidly as possible from exsanguination
- The ritual cut is a single fluid, uninterrupted cut of the neck
- In adult bovines this single cut may include continuous, rapidly executed back and forth fluid movements as long as the movements were uninterrupted in their execution
- Both carotid arteries and jugular veins must be totally cut at the same time to best achieve the outcome of massive blood loss and quick onset of unconsciousness leading to death
- The knife can never be lifted off of the animal's neck to be reintroduced for another cut during this fluid back and forth movement.
Examples
- You only use ritual slaughterers who have the necessary qualifications or certification, training, skills or knowledge to conduct ritual slaughter competently for each animal that is conscious when ritually slaughtered
- You only use ritual slaughterers who know how to use the proper knife and maintain it sharp for each animal, free of nicks or imperfections and that the blade length is at least double the width of the neck of the animal to achieve a proper ritual cut
- For additional information, refer to the guidance material on:
Subsection 144 (c) Bleeding requirements for the food animal ritually cut without pre-slaughter stunning
- The outcome must be a rapid loss of consciousness, observable as loss of posture of the food animal in the upright restraint position.
- You must have performance criteria, and monitoring procedures in place to ensure you achieve this outcome.
- You must have a corrective action procedure in the event your performance criteria are not met.
- You must ensure the food animal is unconscious before suspension and is dead before any dressing procedures are conducted.
Examples
- You have time-to-collapse performance criteria in place for each animal ritually slaughtered without pre-slaughter stunning
- You implement post-cut stunning as the deviation procedure if your time-to-collapse performance criteria are not met for the individual animal ritually slaughtered without pre-slaughter stunning
- When this deviation recurs, you stop the ritual slaughter without pre-slaughter stunning and develop effective corrective action procedures before starting again
- For additional information, refer to the guidance material on: