Biological principles

Animal senses

animals’ basic physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst, rest, and thermoregulatory control.

Knowledge about biological principals is important for animal friendly handling in the context of slaughter and other forms of killing.
Photo: Anne Larsen, SLU

Animals that are slaughtered or killed are subjected to various risks from an animal welfare perspective. Some examples are a high pace, noise, encountering unknown conspecifics and humans, careless handling and incorrect lairaging, as well as insufficient stunning and extended killing. To minimise the risks it is important to understand the biological principles that are the foundation for the animals’ physiological needs and behaviour.

The purpose of this module is to show the situation at slaughter and killing from the animal’s perspective, and to understand how you have a direct impact on this in your profession. In that way you can relieve the stress and avoid that animals are subjected to pain and unnecessary suffering. The module is concluded by bringing up some important ethical aspects that are valuable to know when working with slaughter and killing of animals.
The contents of the module is a foundation for animal friendly handling at slaughter.

Learning goals and recommended time for learning

The purpose of the module is that you as a participant after a review should be able to

• account for the biological principles that are of importance for slaughter and other forms of killing.
• describe the animals’ senses: vision, hearing, olfaction, and feeling.
• describe the animals’ basic physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst, rest, and thermoregulatory control.
• account for the animals’ natural behaviour and how it may affect their situation at the slaughterhouse and when they are killed.
• account for how animals communicate with each other and the importance of their ranking.
• account for how species, breed, sex, age, genetical predisposition, composition of animal groups, and handling at the farm can affect the animals’ experience of slaughter and killing.
• explain the concept of pain.
• explain the concept of fear.
• account for how slaughter without stunning affects the animals’ well-being
• explain the concept of stress and how it affects animal welfare.
• Assess when animals are subjected to unnecessary suffering and how it can be avoided.
• explain what the concept of animal welfare comprises and how you can influence animal welfare in your profession.
• broadly account for some important ethical standings at slaughter and killing.

Estimated time required:
3 hours to study the contents of the module, which amounts to 113 pages.
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