Report / Economic Advisory Council. Committee on Slaughtering of Livestock.

  • Great Britain. Economic Advisory Council. Committee on Slaughtering of Livestock.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report / Economic Advisory Council. Committee on Slaughtering of Livestock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/112 (page 33)
    _to 15 beasts. The number of men employed on the killing floor amounts to between 13 and 16 per bed, included in which average are gome men whose work is not confined to any particular bed. As an example of the very high degree of specialisation of labour that is practised, we give the following list of the different classes of worker employed on the killing floor of a large plant in Brazil when killing at the rate of 180 cattle an hour, at which rate a gang of about 200 men would be employed :— Knocker, Rumpers, Sawers, Shackler, Quarterers, Breast sawers, Headers, Fellbeaters, Keel pullers, Floormen, Neck droppers, Labourers, Sticker, Feet skinners, Washers, Skinners, Tail pullers, Trimmers. Backers off, Gaiters, 86. A modern packing-house is generally built on two floors, killing taking place upon the first floor. This arrangement allows all the products arising in the process of dressing the carcase to be dis- tributed by gravity to the department in which they are finally worked up. Beasts are driven up a ramp to the killing floor, where one by one they take their places in the knocking pen, where they are stunned from above. The side of the knocking pen is then lifted and the bottom pulled up, so that the unconscious animal is thrown out. Shackles are then placed round its hind legs, and it is lifted from the floor by an electric hoist. The beast is moved on to the next point, where its throat is cut in such a way that the blood drains into a gutter. The carcase is moved to the bed, previously mentioned, where it is flayed, and where the head and legs are taken off, and the body split in half by means of a circular saw. The sides are then cleaned, washed, and trimmed, and moved on to the cooling chamber. The whole process takes about 45 minutes. (c) By-products. 87. We do not propose to attempt a comprehensive account of the different products of a large meat works or of their manufacture. They include such different articles as hides, fertilisers and feeding stuffs, edible oils, tallow, bone, horn, glue, gut, hair, and pharmaceuticai products. In addition, a packing-house produces a great variety of canned meats and sausages. The extent to which any given plant undertakes the subsequent treatment of by- products depends upon its size. But all packing-houses are equipped in such a way that by-products and offals can be handled economically. Perhaps the most important single process is that by which waste fat, trimmings, hoofs and bones are rendered by heating in large kettles, the resulting [8282] ©