Arrival and lairage management

This dossier aims to help Competent Authorities and other stakeholders with issues related to welfare of pigs arriving, being handled and in lairage of slaughterhouses. The dossier is updated periodically by the EURCAW-Pigs team. The text is meant to support Competent Authorities, and is not legally binding.

Council Regulations (EC) No 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing, and 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport, regulate the legal requirements related to arrival and lairage management. In EURCAW-Pigs' Thematic factsheet on arrival and lairage management at pig slaughterhouses, the relevant legal requirements are summarized and presented in conjunction with the three focus areas for inspections.

By understanding behavioural and physiological needs of pigs, inspectors and business operators can differentiate between ‘normal coping behaviour’ of pigs in slaughterhouses, or behaviour that indicates prevalence of animal welfare issues. Concerning animal-human interactions, e.g., pigs should be handled as sentient beings, thus respecting their behavioural needs and the stress they are coping with on the day of slaughter. The layout and construction of lairage should encourage pigs to move freely within lairage passageways and races to the stunning area.

For three key areas to focus on during inspections, welfare indicators are suggested to identify and manage animal welfare problems, and support the evaluation of compliance with the legal frameworks of Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 and 1/2005 that regulate the legal requirements related to arrival and lairage management. Each indicator is described in an indicator factsheet, by suggesting an inspection and scoring method, and summarizing the underlying welfare concern and legal requirements.

For good practices of implementation of EU legislation, seen in a full systems context, inspiring examples and demonstrators are identified. The examples given here address some good practices regarding calm and attentive handling of the animals from unloading to death. Demonstration of good practices are excellent ways and proven methods of dissemination of knowledge, exchanging ideas, harmonizing assessments, and changing attitudes. Brand Qualitätsfleisch is a medium-sized slaughterhouse in Lohne, Germany, where transparency and animal welfare at slaughter play a particularly important role.

The slaughterhouse Thönes-Natur-Verbund in Wachtendonk, Germany, specializes in the slaughter of pigs that meet the quality requirements of the Naturverbund (organic and Thönes-Natur). The company has developed a special u-shaped raceway to the electrical stunner. On the one hand, the short drive aisle reduces the period of stressful singling/separation of the pigs, which is always necessary before electric stunning. On the other hand, the curved design gives the animals the feeling of moving back to the starting direction, i.e. back to the other pigs. In addition, good illumination of the stunning device supports the animals' entry. Overall, this u-shaped system allows one person to calmly move pigs to the stunner with minimal use of driving tools and low stress, which in turn can have a positive impact on the stunning effectiveness.

Vion Food Group has developed a management system called “PigSlot” which allows transporters and drivers to see when the slaughterhouse as the destination of the transport has free capacity to unload the animals and to accommodate them in the lairage area.

It may be helpful for Competent Authorities (CAs) and inspectors to get an impression of the possibilities to monitor animal-related measures in slaughterhouses through the application of sensor technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Sensor technology cannot yet replace a human during the meat inspection, but it has potential to play an important role in the future. Currently it can already add value to the inspections and provide better insight into animal welfare issues than by human inspections alone (Voogt et al., 2023). This document provides several examples of digital technology systems to improve animal welfare.

In collaboration with national training bodies and national reference centers on animal welfare, EURCAW-Pigs develops training guides for the different welfare topics as standards for national training in EU Member States.