As an agricultural industry whose standards of animal welfare and stockmanship are regarded as world-leading*, PIANZ members are proactive in ensuring that the practices they follow during the farming, transport and slaughtering of meat chickens always meet and often exceed the requirements of the Animal Welfare (Meat Chickens) Code of Welfare 2012, and the Animal Welfare (Commercial Slaughter) Code of Welfare 2010.
The Commercial Slaughter Code sets rigorous standards with a particular focus on humane electrical stunning practices for poultry.These require that birds are rendered insensible immediately and guaranteed not to recover from that process until death ensues. In New Zealand, the method used is electrical stunning by means of a water bath.
To ensure that the electrical stunning process is working to provide an immediate effective stun as required by the Code, the industry has invested in an electrical stun monitor to record and validate the level of the electrical currents that are used in the stunning equipment in all member sites.
The industry has also produced a training video which provides guidance for processing staff and MPI Verification Services personnel in recognising the signs of an effective stun on birds. The ability to monitor these signs is also critical in maintaining a high welfare outcome.
Other investments in industry training include specific training on humane slaughter by the leading UK-based training provider, Animal Welfare Training Ltd (AWT). In addition, the stunning and slaughter processes operated by PIANZ members are rigorously audited by MPI Verification Services personnel and by many commercial customers.
- New Zealand is one of only four countries globally which has an “A” rating in the Animal Protection Index issued by the London-based animal protection organisation, World Animal Protection. The other countries are the UK, Switzerland and Austria.