4 Major Activities

1. Animal Delivery
 Reception-Off loading - Animals are transported from housing to abattoir.
Receiving area must have watering, feeding and animal inspection facilities.
 Ante-Mortem Inspection - Animals are to be inspected by a Veterinarian.
Healthy animals are sent to lairage while sick and injured animals are to be sent
to isolation pen or slaughtered immediately. Ante-mortem inspection is any
method of inspection of animal health prior to slaughtering by official inspector
for consumers’ safety.
 Lairage - Place where animals are provided rest before slaughter. Rest is to be
provided up to 24 hours to overcome the physiological stress involved in
transportation of animals.
 Emergency Slaughtering - Immobility of pigs is a reason for emergency
slaughter. An emergency slaughter is a slaughter of a food animal that has a
disease, that is suspected to have one, or that is injured. These animals are
slaughtered in facilities designed for this purpose or in slaughterhouse sections
used for this purpose or on the premises of a regular slaughterhouse but at
separate times.

2. Slaughtering Activities
 Stunning - renders an animal insensible before it is killed
 Bleeding - remove as much blood from the carcass as possible before further
handling
 Scalding - lowering of animal into steam to prepare skin for dehairing
 Dehairing - removal of the hair of the carcass
 Singeing - cleaning the carcass by burning the hair
 Removal of heads and feet - head shall be removed by cutting through the
vertebral column behind the ear at the atlas joint.
 Removal of hides
 Brisket Splitting
 Evisceraton - process of removing the internal organs in the abdominal and
thoracic cavities
 Offal cleaning - wastes or the by-products after evisceration are cleaned and
are ready to be outloaded

3. Packaging and Cooling

 Carcass Splitting - dividing carcass into parts
 Post Mortem Inspection – means any methods of the inspection of carcass and
visceral organs by official inspector for consumers’ safety.
  Final Wash
 Deboning
 Carcass Quartering
 Carcass Quarter Transfer
 Hanging
 Chilling - The carcasses will be placed in chilled storage prior to dispatch. Meat
will be kept in chilled storage (at 2°C) for a minimum period of 24 hours before
dispatch.

4. Meat delivery
 Outloading (Carcasses/Packaged Meat) – Carcasses are placed ready for
transporting from abattoir to market.

http://www.epa.ie/licences/lic_eDMS/090151b2800c1cdb.pdf - process flow w/ diagram

Life long learning:

As future Ag. Engr's, it is essential to be familiar in making a process flow chart or to interpret one.
Basic knowledge on a process flow charts can help an Engr or a business owner to improve the
efficiency of a workplace in accomplishing a task. Streamlining the processes within a business can
greatly help operators to increase their productivity, and more productivity means more sales, more
sales means greater profit. By providing flow charts on any services/business it will help avoid
technical errors and can give visitors an idea on how the operation works.