Effects of normal, light/normal or double stunning on the incidence and severity of blood splash in lambs

One-hundred-and-twenty lambs were divided into three equal groups which were subjected to head electrical anaesthesia before bleeding. The normal group was stunned and bleeding was initiated within 5 to 8 s. The light/normal group was partially stunned and then treated as the normal group after a delay of 10s. The double stunned group was electrically anaesthetised, allowed to recover and then restunned and bleeding was initiated within 5 to 8 s. The light/normal and double stunning procedures increased the incidence and severity of carcass blood splash compared with normal stunning but the increase was less than that sometimes seen in normal mobs of head-stunned sheep and which occurs for unknown reasons.