Diversity, not uniformity: slaughter and electrical waterbath stunning procedures in Belgian slaughterhouses

Data on slaughter and stunning protocols in Belgian poultry abattoirs were collected, and subsequently the survival rate after electrical waterbath stunning in 1,400 animals across 7 selected slaughterhouses was determined. The majority of the abattoirs applied electrical waterbath stunning (72%), whereas the other methods were gas stunning (13%), head-only stunning (6%), and dry stunning (3%). In 6% of the slaughterhouses, the birds were killed...