A way聽of slaughtering chickens that is said to be painless and to reduce their distress is one step closer to being used in Europe. If approved, it has the potential to improve how 60聽billion birds are killed for meat globally each year.
Low atmospheric pressure stunning (LAPS) was developed by聽 in Mississippi. The European Food Safety Authority has now recommended that it be approved for use in the European Union. In a , the EFSA says LAPS outdoes or equals existing systems for humane slaughter.
LAPS is supported by several animal welfare organisations, like the Humane Slaughter Association. While these regret the widespread slaughter of animals, they campaign for the most humane methods while demand for meat continues. 鈥淸LAPS] has potential to significantly improve meat chicken welfare beyond systems used today,鈥� says Marc Cooper at the UK鈥檚 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
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Most abattoirs first render chickens unconscious, then cut聽their throats to kill them. There are two main methods of聽stunning birds: electrocuting them in a water bath and gassing them with carbon dioxide. In both cases, it is difficult to ensure that the birds are fully unconscious.
In the dark
Birds undergoing LAPS gradually lose consciousness until they are irreversibly brain-dead, and are then killed in the conventional way.
They are placed in a sealed chamber, which is dark to make them drowsy. The air is drawn out聽over four-and-a-half minutes, causing oxygen levels to drop from 21 per cent to less than 5. For the first 40 seconds, they barely react. From 50 to 70 seconds they flop over, as if going to sleep聽鈥� this is when they lose consciousness, suggest electroencephalograms.
鈥淲e know from other work that, if the birds were in pain or fear states in this phase, they would 鈥榳ake up鈥�, but we don鈥檛 see this in the EEG, providing evidence the birds are not suffering during LAPS,鈥� says Dorothy McKeegan at聽the University of Glasgow, UK, who has evaluated the method鈥檚 humaneness.
To be sure the birds weren鈥檛 distressed, McKeegan gave some chickens pain-relieving drugs to see if their EEGs differed before they died.
The birds are motionless after 140 seconds. However, they are kept in for another 2 minutes to ensure that they are irreversibly stunned, before being killed.
As part of the EFSA鈥檚 evaluation, 19 animal welfare experts for humaneness. Lower scores were better. LAPS got a score of 3.5, versus 7 for gas and 10 for water bath stunning.
Still, commercial testing is crucial, says Cooper. 鈥淭he question mark is always whether what performs well in a lab performs well in the real world.鈥�
A LAPS system is already being聽used at a poultry plant in Arkansas and mobile units also operate in Alberta, Canada. But approval in Europe could spark global acceptance, as its standards are seen as the strictest.
鈥淕lobally, I think that LAPS has聽the potential to have a great impact on the welfare of poultry at slaughter,鈥� says McKeegan. She says the system works for larger birds like turkeys, and will next examine its effect on pigs.
