Regarding Abattoirs

When we hear in the news about the shortage of staff at abattoirs leading to terrible scenes of livestock being slaughtered on farms and the meat completely wasted, it makes me all the more thankful to have our local abattoir, Snell’s, just a few miles drive away from the farm. When you raise livestock, investing your blood, sweat and tears and really caring about those animals, it’s reassuring to know that they’ll meet a quick and painless end in a professional abattoir, with staff who deal sensitively with them. I’ve been very happy with the service I’ve received from this small family-run abattoir and had no worries about the way they treat the animals. They’re also friendly and helpful to small farmers like me, who are bringing their own animals in to the abattoir in small numbers, wanting to keep the whole process as stress-free as possible for the animals. Stress isn’t just bad from an ethical perspective, it also reflects in the flavour of the meat - it is a well known fact that stress prior to slaughter taints meat because of the effect of the adrenaline in the animals’ muscles. So I like to hope that my animals go off channeling The Dude as much as possible, even if their owner is struggling to 😎.