Improvements at abattoir

As part of the ongoing exercise to improve animal welfare conditions within the Civil Abattoir, the Veterinary Affairs and Fisheries Division has recently installed a ramp leading into the emergency slaughter line.

The ramp, which was designed by an abattoir engineer and entirely constructed by the maintenance workers deployed within the Abattoir, will ensure that animals delivered for slaughter will not undergo unnecessary hardship prior to the slaughter.

Due attention has been given to the height of the ramp so as to maintain the unloading levels as horizontal as possible.

To complement this installation adequate drinking facilities have been provided for all animals. Since the ramp has been in operation, animals have moved from the trucks onto the ramp and into the lairage without the need for human intervention, thus showing that the system implemented has reaped all the expected benefits.

A spokesman for the Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment said that this measure is temporary. It is planned that the current slaughtering of species other than horses in the emergency slaughter line will be moved respectively to the bovine and pig slaughter lines, according to the progress of the upgrading of these lines.

Various works have been commissioned to this end and should be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2007, the spokesman said.