Pigs stunning optimisation

Pigs are stunned by means of electrical current or carbon dioxide in order to avoid pain during debleeding to death. This is important from the point of view of animal welfare and meat quality. The latter is linked to the first: meat from animals that do not experience stress and pain before and during slaughter is tastier and more tender. The electrical stunning process is not perfect as sometimes the carcass exhibits damage. Researchers try thus to improve stunning methods in an experimental way: several groups of animals are stunned using different stunning currents and electrode positions, after which results are compared. A project has been started with the goal of optimising the electrical energy storage during stunning. In this paper, we describe the steps used to better characterize the knowledge of pigs electrical properties and present some results.