[Handling of animals for slaughter according to animal welfare regulations]

According to animal protection the transport and proceeding of slaughtering are a difficult topic to cope with. The section of people is often restricted to distrust and rejection. In order to achieve improvement we need laws which prescribe the transport standards in particular with regard to the duration of driving and resting periods and the feeding. Transports which exceed 12 h enlarge the risk of disregarding laws and prescriptions and should on principle be prohibited. At least the important coherence between protection of slaughter animals on the one hand and the meat quality on the other hand requires a careful treatment of the animals from the producer to the slaughtering. The only successful options are strict control and high penalties. To get the method of narcosis of pigs out of common criticism we should lead our minds into a new direction: In this case animal protection should be more reflected to than meat hygiene problems and therefore the possibility of a provoked heart failure before the bleeding out should be realized.