"At a typical slaughter facility, cattle are led through a chute into a knocking box - usually a large cylindrical hold through which the head pokes. The stun operator, or 'knocker', presses a large pneumatic gun between the cow's eyes. A steel bolt shoots into the cow's skull and then retracts back into the gun, usually rendering the animal unconscious or causing death. Sometimes the bolt only dazes the animal, which either remains conscious or later wakes up as it is being 'processed'. [...]
In twelve seconds or less, the knocked cow - unconscious, semi-conscious, fully conscious, or dead - moves down the line to arrive at the 'shackler', who attaches a chain around one of the hind legs and hoists the animal into the air.
From the shackler, the animal, now dangling from a leg, is mechanically moved to a 'sticker', who cuts the carotid arteries and a jugular vein in the neck. The animal is again mechanically moved to a 'bleed rail' and drained of blood for several minutes. A cow has in the neighborhood of five and a half gallons of blood, so this takes some time. Cutting the flow of blood to the animal's brain will kill it, but not instantly (which is why the animals are supposed to be unconscious). If the animal is partially conscious or improperly cut, this can restrict the flow of blood, prolonging consciousness further. 'They'd be blinking and stretching their necks from side to side, looking around, really frantic,' explained one line worker.
The cow should now be a carcass, which will move along the line to a 'head-skinner,' which is exactly what it sounds like - a stop where the skin is peeled off the head of the animal. The percentage of cattle still conscious at this stage is low but not zero. [...]
After the head-skinner, the carcass (or cow) proceeds to the 'leggers,' who cut off the lower portions of the animal's legs. 'As far as the ones that come back to life,' says a line worker, 'it looks like they're trying to climb the walls. ...And when they get to the leggers, well, the leggers don't want to wait to start working on the cow until somebody gets down there to reknock it. So they just cut off the bottom part of the leg with the clippers. When they do that, the cattle go wild, just kicking in every direction.'
The animal then proceeds to be completely skinned, eviscerated, and cut in half, at which point it finally looks like the stereotyped image of beef - hanging in freezers with eerie stillness."
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