Department of Forensic Medicine and Imaging, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Meat Sci. 2022 Nov;193:108933. doi: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2022.108933. Epub 2022 Aug 5.
To ensure animal welfare at slaughter, rapid stunning is required to render the animal deeply unconscious. In cattle, captive-bolt stunners are typically used for this purpose. However, with regard to their impact force and maximum length of approximately 120 mm, such captive-bolt stunners are not suitable for stunning water buffaloes due to anatomical characteristics of the skull. In water buffaloes the bone layer is thicker and the distance from the point of attachment of the captive-bolt stunner to the relevant brain region is longer. For this reason, a special bullet-shooting stunner was developed, which is similar in size and handling to a standard captive-bolt stunner, but instead of a bolt, it fires a bullet. Actually, even two bullets can be loaded so that a follow-up shot can be fired immediately if necessary. In this study, the bullet-shooting stunner was tested using two different types of hunting ammunition for stunning water buffaloes during regular slaughter.
为了确保动物在屠宰时的福利，需要进行快速致晕以使动物深度昏迷。在牛中，通常使用捕捉式撞锤致晕器来达到这个目的。然而，由于水牛头骨的解剖结构特点，这种捕捉式撞锤致晕器的撞击力和大约 120 毫米的最大长度并不适合用于致晕水牛。在水牛中，骨层更厚，并且从捕捉式撞锤致晕器的连接点到相关脑区的距离更长。出于这个原因，开发了一种特殊的弹丸射击致晕器，它在尺寸和操作上与标准的捕捉式撞锤致晕器相似，但它不是发射撞锤，而是发射弹丸。实际上，可以装入两颗弹丸，以便在必要时可以立即进行后续射击。在这项研究中，使用两种不同类型的狩猎弹药对水牛肉用屠宰期间的水牛头进行了弹丸射击致晕器的测试。
