The end of a sheep’s life can come about naturally, or it can be produced by humans, either in the best interests of the sheep or in the human’s own interests.
A sheep dying at the conclusion of what is regarded as natural span, and without there having been any medical intervention, or external cause to the death, has reached its death without human input. However, when a sheep dies at the decision of a human, and at a time of the human’s choice, the process to death will have complexity and elements absent from a death that has happened entirely naturally.
The death of a sheep is a process, whether it occurs naturally or with some human participation. In the example of the death of a sheep that has human involvement, according to what the degree of that involvement is, the number of humans involved and making decisions, and the amount of elements featuring, there will be a range of variation in the human involvement. A sheep that is ill, treated by a vet, and which nonetheless dies, or else which - because it is not going to get well - is decided to be put to death to avoid the sheep undergoing further suffering, has experienced the attention of its owner, a vet, and perhaps the ‘knacker person’ too, in its process to death. Selection of a sheep for culling, gathering and transporting the sheep, handling the sheep and putting it to death at the slaughterhouse, call upon a more varied and complicated process and which brings in a more wide group of persons.
When a sheep is dead its body will need to be dealt with by a human or humans. So, even the sheep that has died naturally, on home ground, will in death need human attendance - for its dead body to be suitably removed (by a knacker person).
The key thing of importance about a sheep’s ending is, of course, that the process of that ending should be of the highest standard, to give the least possible suffering, pain, stress, to a sheep, and to attend at every stage to the sheep’s best welfare.
In its publication RSPCA Welfare Standards for Sheep (June 2020), the RSPCA gives very detailed guidance on transportation to the slaughterhouse and the whole process of procedure and operation at the slaughterhouse and including on management and training of slaughterhouse personnel. It indicates which aspects are legal requirements. The Farm Animal Welfare Council (renamed the Farm Animal Welfare Committee on 1st October 2019) document Report on the Welfare of Farmed Animals at Slaughter or Killing: Part 1: Red Meat Animals (June 2003) gives a similarly detailed depiction of what should be best practice in regards treatment of animals at the slaughterhouse.
Compassion in World Farming [CIWF] says it ‘believes that suffering at slaughter can be avoided, provided certain basic principles are met’ and states these to be that:
‘The transport and handling of the animal prior to slaughter minimises stress
Death is instantaneous, or
The animal is instantaneously stunned and remains unconscious until dead
The method of inducing unconsciousness and death is not in itself likely to cause stress.’
CIWF then goes on to say:
‘The law requires animals in the EU to be effectively stunned before slaughter. However, exceptions are made which permit some religious communities to slaughter without pre-stunning. This applies to slaughter by the Jewish method (Shechita) or by the Muslim method (Halal).
Compassion believes there should be no exemptions, and the law should be changed to require all animals to be effectively stunned before slaughter, regardless of the slaughter method that is then used (this also applies to mis-stunning in conventional abattoirs). We also believe that all slaughterhouses should have CCTV installed in order to assist with the monitoring of slaughter and to help prevent cruelty.’
Now, CCTV is mandatory in slaughterhouses in England and Scotland, and it is set to become mandatory in Wales in 2023/24. The organisation Animal Aid continues to campaign for the CCTV in slaughterhouses to be independently monitored.
CIWF draws to attention that in the EU ‘roughly 18% of sheep … are not killed in official slaughter houses’. It explains, ‘This means that their slaughter goes entirely unregulated, and much of this is likely to be inhumane.’
Looking at the last phase of life for sheep, where are the points where there is potential for sheep to not be treated as well as possible and with full compassion, and what are the causes and reasons for the lack?
If a sheep is ill and seems to be dying, the point is for care, judgement and responsibility to be to the optimum for decisions to be made on the basis of what is the best action for the welfare and least suffering of the sheep. So, respect for, and great care for, the sheep, living beings, and which are sentient, is essential. This is a requirement for owners, vets, and also knacker persons - and whether these last have been called out by farmers to put a sheep out of its misery by killing it or if they have been called out to remove a dead sheep.
Transport is a stressor to sheep, and so the last journey needs to be as short as possible. This is one reason why it is important to have enough slaughterhouses in existence, for these never to be too far distant from a sheep farm.
That a slaughterhouse should be small is important too. This is more likely to lead to avoidance of impersonality of approach to animals by slaughterhouse operatives. The ‘Fallen stock’ chapter of Bella Bathurst’s book Field Work: What Land Does to People & What People Do to Land (2021), conveys what a tough job is that of knacker person. And feature writer Henry Mance, who, in the ‘Slaughterhouse Rules’ chapter of his book How To Love Animals: In A Human-Shaped World (2021) describes his period as an ‘abattoir ancillary worker’, says ‘the first thing you learn about slaughterhouses is that it’s easy to find work in one.’ Mance says ‘Abattoirs can’t really choose who they employ.’ He graphically describes sheep going through the slaughterhouse process. In The Guardian Human animal video ‘ “We’ve got a cow to shoot next”: What death in farming really looks like’ (2nd November 2021), Richard Sprenger goes out with a knacker on his rounds, and visits a small slaughterhouse. His visit to the latter, and in which he sees lambs ‘going through the process’, provides demonstration of the, relative, advantages of slaughterhouses being small.
The ending of every sheep’s life should be such that gives the sheep the minimum suffering and stress possible. To greater or lesser extent, greater usually, the process of the end of a sheep’s life is at the behest of humans. And overall sheep are in the ownership and care of humans. So, with humankind reside the duty and responsibility to ensure that a sheep’s process to dying, death, and remains-handling is a process which is humane, caring, respectful of the sheep and its nature, and keeping of the sheep’s dignity.
Fundamentals in a situation of trying avoiding unnecessary death of sheep are: to notice any ill health in a sheep - and early enough, to give treatment as and when needed, to bring in a vet when necessary - and soon enough. If the life of a sheep is decided as unable to be saved, the fundamental is to see that the sheep does not have any suffering that can be avoided. If a sheep dies, its dead body should be handled in a respectful and appropriate way.
Regarding the preparation of live sheep for slaughter, elsewhere, the basics are to avoid giving sheep unnecessary stress and to have the journey to the slaughterhouse short. Guidelines and regulations set out what procedures should be: in relation to transport, handling, process at the slaughterhouse. The difficulties in relation to slaughterhouses are these: jobs in slaughterhouses are not desirable and so to recruit staff of the right and suitable calibre can be challenging; the greater the size of the operation, the greater potential there is for staff to have an impersonality of approach, and not to see and care about a sheep as an individual; a larger-scale activity can be conducive to absence of a feeling of accountability in staff.
An essential for recognising in considering the ending of life of sheep is that most sheep do not live their natural span. Some sheep who are killed are culled because they are suffering, and so it is humane action for such a sheep to be put to death. But of the vast many sheep whose lives are lost prematurely and unnaturally, most of them have their lives cut short for the reason that humans have chosen that these sheep have a purpose to provide meat and/or skin. Humans have decided they want lamb and mutton to eat; they want sheep skin/leather to wear and use.
Because humans make decisions that sheep should die ‘before time’, the responsibility rests with them, and it should do so heavily, to ensure that the sheep, that they have decided should be killed, should do so with minimum fear or suffering. If humans choose that a sheep should reach its ending, unnaturally and early, they have the strong duty to ensure that the whole process of that ending will be as best as can possibly be for the sheep.
4th January 2022