FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 427 



THE ABATTOIR AND PACKING HOUSE. 



While the slaughter of animals and the disposal of the meat are not 

 involved in the marketing- of live stock, they are closely connected 

 therewith, and will, therefore, be given brief consideration here. 



Abattoirs or slaughterhouses vary in their equipment and capacity 

 for work from the small local one to that of the great packing houses 

 of the large cities. In the one case only a few animals are killed to 

 supply a local consumption; in the other, thousands of animals are 

 killed daily and their parts are distributed among the markets of the 

 world. 



In this country men in small towns usually either buy their meat at 

 wholesale from the agent of some nonresident packing house, or they 

 slaughter in a small way in some sort of a barn-like structure on the 

 outskirts of the town. Small combined slaughter and packing houses 

 occur in small cities. In some cases the firm owning the building will, 

 for a certain consideration, permit other butchers to slaughter their 

 stock at so much per head or for a regular annual rental. Such an estab- 

 lishment will have more paddocks than common for one butcher, and 

 will also have greater floor space than would be necessary in a small 

 city for one firm. 



Cattle, sheep and swine in America are usually slaughtered by cut- 

 ting the throat. Cattle are first stunned by a blow on the frontal bone 

 of the skull from a long handled heavy hammer, which fells them, after 

 which the throat is cut. Sheep are seized by the hind legs and are sus- 

 pended to hooks, which are stuck through the legs above the ankle be- 

 tween bone and sinew, after which the throat is cut as the animal hangs. 

 Hogs have the jugular vein cut by a quick movement of the knife. 



The general plan after killing is to remove the skins of cattle and 

 sheep or hair of swine as soon as possible after death, after which the 

 internal organs are removed by making an opening from throat to vent. 

 laying the entire body cavity open for removing the parts. In the great 

 packing houses of today, and in some cases even in small, local slaus^h- 

 terhouses, everything is saved and sold for some special purpose. 



PACKING HOUSE METHODS. 



The largest packing houses m the world are situated in the Union 

 Stock Yards at Chicago. 



Methods with cattle. The cattle enter the slaughterhouse from the 

 yards through a narrow chute leading into the "knock-out" pens, which 

 consist of a long narrow room, wide enough to hold two cattle abreast. 

 When two steers reach the end of the room, a wooden partition is let 

 down behind them, and in front of the pair back of them, and in this 

 way throughout. From four to ten pens are thus used. Men known as 

 "knockers" or "stunners" stand on planks overhead and strike the ani- 

 mals deadly blows on the head, when they drop to the floor stunned. 

 One side of the stall is then raised, the floor is tilted by means of a 

 mechanical arrangement, and the animal rolls out onto a shackling 

 floor. Here a man places a chain about the hind legs and hooks it onto 



