Smithfield’s plant in Gwaltney, Virginia can process over 10,000 pigs … The three answers already here pretty much cover slaughter methods. The optimist in me hates to euthanize a pig. But the Australian meat industry standard requires a CO2 concentration at least four times higher than what is scientifically known to avoid distress. How Many Pigs Does Smithfield Slaughter Per Day? 4. Anyway, you’ll aim right between the eyes and slightly above them. In a slaughterhouse, cows are not cows, pigs are not pigs, and chickens are not chickens. Rosalind Dalefield’s answer is spot on. While many slaughterhouses will distance themselves from others caught on video for abusing and torturing animals, the end results in each and ever slaughterhouse on the planet is the same. To the casual observer it could appear that the pig is aware that danger is at hand. Electrocution. Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Virginia, kills almost 30 million pigs every year—more than any other company in the world. Most pigs are now killed this way. However, that was never my experience. Before dying, different types of mechanisms are used to knock out animals before being slaughtered. Slaughterhouse - the most terrifying place on earth This powerful video focuses on five individuals who were forced to enter the most terrifying place on earth, a slaughterhouse. He used it because it was just easier to maneuver. A captive bolt pistol or gun (also variously known as a cattle gun, stunbolt gun, bolt gun, or stunner) is a device used for stunning animals prior to slaughter.. Our pigs are first shot to stun them, and then throats are cut. Because of improper stunning, many pigs are alive when they reach the scalding tank, which is intended to soften their skin and remove their hair. However, in our case, the first pig went down just fine. Animals are killed as fast and efficiently as possible. I’ve heard that the European method is to just go right in for the throat cut. The way that Smithfield treats pigs, from birth to slaughter, could result in felony cruelty-to-animals charges if pigs were covered by the same laws that are designed to protect dogs and cats from abuse. The Tar Heel, North Carolina packaging plant has the capacity to slaughter 36,000 pigs per day. The wait can last one or two days long. A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1,100 pigs every hour. Animals have to wait their turn at the slaughterhouse. Only one shot should put it down. Smithfield Foods raised and slaughtered 15.6 million pigs in 2016. Some animals, such as pigs and cows, witness how their peers are sent to death, and suffer terribly knowing that they will be next. How to Slaughter a Pig. I grew up on a small farm, unlike your friend who grew up among small farmers. Because pigs are highly intelligent and easily distressed, group gassing is touted as the most 'humane' method of rendering them unconscious before slaughter. The sheer number of animals killed makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. The goal of captive bolt stunning is to inflict a forceful strike on the forehead with the bolt in order to induce unconsciousness.The bolt may or may not destroy part of the brain.. I can’t imagine how hard that is, and how much skill that would take. In our case, they used a handgun to kill the pigs. So I’ll go another route….euthanasia. I keep hoping whatever ailment there is will clear up.