'...require owners to deploy "a specific person responsible for animal welfare and ensure that their staff are properly trained and certified".'

Shouldn't the staff also be vetted?

Mine's the one with the happy cow in the pocket.

Talk about intrinsic contradictions. We have had this ratchetting of regulation of slaughter which has meant that smaller abattoires have been closed down coz of the red tape. Instead, beasts are often trucked 50 miles or more to the mega-slaughteries, arriving there p***ed of from a long trip in the back of a truck, annoyed and wound up rather than chilled about meeting their maker and my breakfast plate.

The single biggest animal welfare measure would be to re-open the smaller, local abattoires so that the animals can be dispatched in a nice cozy atmosphere.

"Now Mr. cow, would you prefer to be a burger or a sausage?"

"Moo."

"Excellent. Smythe, make with the electrodes."

fuck your meaty murder

Ninja's can put their devastating skills, to devastating effect and the lucky animal will not know that its been devastated until it hits the ground!

Paris, because there's no ninja icon!

This is not new in the UK. Most slaughterhouses over here have had animal welfare officers for very many years. As with everything else, they are monitored constantly.

The on site facilities are designed to try to reduce the amount of distress that animals are subjected to - they are also allowed access to feed and water. If an animal is displaying signs that would give the AWO cause for concern, he / she can order it to removed and placed in an area where it can be observed and allowed to recover.

Of course that doesn't mean that abuse doesn't happen; but it does reduce it considerably.

For info, I was IT manager in a slaughter house for nearly 5 years. I have many tales of crawling through the less attractive parts of the site to fix faulty connections etc. Sort of a BOFH with green wellies!

"As a society we have a duty of care towards animals, which includes minimising distress and avoiding pain throughout the slaughtering process."

Well after ramming a bolt through the skull and then carving up the carcass with large blades, I can imagine there is not much welfare to worry about really? At the end of the day it's BS, as I believe there is slim proof that if the animals are too stressed at slaughter, the meat quaility is supposedly affected and the price it fetches goes down.

( Doesn't bother me either way, I'm a sad loser veggie! )

How low can you go?

Hear the cattle cry - Death Row.

A butcher in south london has a big sign outside that reads "we guarantee our meat is not stunned".

What's the point having animal welfare standards when we turn a blind eye to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals that aren't stunned and often suffer very distressing lingering deaths.

We need two rules:

1. butchers should only be allowed to sell meat from animals that are treated humanely and stunned before slaughter, and if you don't like that you can eat vegetables.

and if we can't do that because it might upset a few people then:

2. anywhere that sells halal meat, or products made from halal meat should be required to display a very prominent warning sign so that people can make an informed choice. Having started to ask recently I've been amazed at the number of retailers selling sandwiches, pies, burgers, chicken etc that do contain Halal - yet this is not obvious from the packaging or the premises. Then again, maybe I need to change my diet...

Steve Jobs, because he only eats Fruit.

on a number of occasions and seen how the animals get treated, I'm all in favour of this. No, I'm not a veggie...

Or like the Bristol University Trained Welfare Officers we have been forced to have for years?

Come get a life or at least a story from this century.

I'm all for treating animals humanely. But this sounds like another bureaucracy. A little bit here and a little bit there and soon enough there will be a Human Waste Disposal Officer to make sure I flush my pee in the proper manner. Governments have too much time on their hands.

To dave lawless: I suggest you eat a nice steak or 12. The protein and B12 deficiency you have seems to be affecting your common sense.

I'm mostly veggie with the exception of the animals I raise and slaughter at home. I can see the point the gov are making but take issue with it to the extent that I agree with the previous statements about the loss of local facilities. It should be easy for a community to put up a small hygenic building for non-profit slaughter of animals close to home but the regulations as they stand at the moment only make it economical for large facilities operating for the the meat industry to exist. The burden of paperwork for most animal movements - never mind slaughter makes life very difficult for the smallholder and limits the type and number of animals it is economical to keep. This is a half-measure that will do little to address the fundemental problems with animal welfare at slaughter, such as the large distances a beast must be transported and the long queue to meet it's end standing in the miasma of death outside an abbatoir.

Tux - because I like to eat little birds

Is to be tasty off the grill.

Raised on a farm, unimpressed by veggies.

Mine's the one with a 22 pistol in the pocket.

Halal should be illegal.

We can't even sort out underaged forced marriage, so what hope have we got of banning barbaric medieval practices like Halal though?

PC gone mad.

It's qualludes and psychologists for all the patients right before treatment.

Those of you who aren't meat eaters; get over it. You're only punishing the environment by murdering plants by the millions.

"Steve Jobs, because he only eats Fruit."

Where does Steve Jobs get protein then? Whoops, maybe I don't want to know...

It is the same old EU level playing field for member states crap. Can't be having a member state gaining a competitive advantage by cheap treatment of animals. All states must be equally burdened by regulation be it welfare officers for slaughter houses or how much rubbish they are allowed to put in holes in their ground.

Having torn down borders to allow free trade we must ensure all member states are equally uncompetitive so free trade is more or less pointless.

The EU - a marvelous invention providing an enormous trough for politicians and their servants which allowed uncompetitive states to continue to be uncompetitive.

...but I suppose we could retrain all those worthless bastard short-selling Trader tossers who have helped make my meager existence even worse.

Better yet, nobody has said anything about Trader Welfare officers being needed at abbatoirs...

Hmm, I'll have the pretty blonde one from the tv ads, with an apple in her gob and a side-salad please, garcon... ;-)

Spit-roast all the little illegitimii!

If we have a law stating how animals should be slaughtered here in Britain do we have a complete double standard - come on UK Gov........ the law is THE LAW - FULL STOP!!

If I have a goat and slit its throat before stunning it (in my back garden) I'm getting locked up by the RSPCA............ why is this different if I have religous beliefs then?????????

Mines the coat with the star of Jedi ...................... (in total disbelief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

What a ludicrous comment. Are you implying that because SS commandants used gas, it shouldn't be used for animals? They also used pens to record information about those they had killed. Shall we ban those? RAA, QED.

Put an animal in a nitrogen atmosphere (i.e. with no oxygen)and it'll slowly pass away with no stress whatsoever (witness the euphoria felt by humans under the same circumstances). If I ever were to contemplate suicide, it'd be my route of choice.

O

PS, flames because there wouldn't be any in my death chamber