In order to reduce the stress of cattle to be slaughtered, a farmer outside Umeå now wants to introduce a new slaughtering model. The method is already used on German farms under the responsibility of slaughterhouses. This means that the animal is shot in the forehead at a longer distance when it is among other animals in a larger pen.
– If you take an animal away from the herd, it gets stressed, says Benny Selberg.
Benny Selberg has 76 cattle on his farm outside Umeå. In 2015, he built a slaughterhouse on the farm so that the animals would not have to travel 25 miles to the slaughterhouse in Luleå.
– They have a good life, they get to live here on the farm and die here when the time comes, says Benny Selberg.
In order to further reduce the animals’ stress, he now wants to use a different slaughter method. As the rules stand today, the animal must be locked in a smaller pen where it is shot in the forehead at close range and loses consciousness.
With the so-called bullet gun method, the animal is shot at a longer distance when it walks with its herd – which reduces stress, according to Benny.
– When the animals are separated from the herd, they become stressed, we don’t want it that way, we want it to be as stress-free as possible.
Used in Germany
In Germany, the pellet gun method has been used since 2011, new EU legislation from 2021 means that all EU countries could use it.
– We are positive, but it must not be the case that the method is worse than the conventional one. Those who euthanize the animals must know what they are doing and both new standard procedures are needed and an independent study must be approved if you want to extend the sting time, i.e. the time from the stunning of the shot to the bleeding, says Mattias Gårdlund, administrator at the Swedish Agricultural Agency.
Researcher positive
Katrin Schiffer at the national food craft center Eldrimner has researched the ball gun method and she hopes it will be introduced in Sweden.
– It is a completely stress-free method. The animals walk and dream, ruminate and it takes a skilled rifleman to shoot the animal, the other animals don’t get scared, she says.
– It will probably take time before the method can be used, but it would be fantastic, says Benny.