Well, I can say with certainty that over the next two weeks, we will not be very involved with the farm. Time difference is the issue. The US West Coast is 8 hours behind. It makes a difference. So we communicate by text overnight but in reality, Jennifer is fully in control. In addition, and probably more importantly, this is a farm and not brain surgery. Issues can wait a few days.
What could not wait, was our farm's first-ever surprise inspection which was from the Animal and Plant Agency. Even Jennifer had never heard from them before. They were on the farm to inspect our slaughterhouse, but only the waiting penns...it was a short inspection because generally on Monday mornings our pens are empty. Sunday is the only day off in our meat plant, therefore Mondays are always a slow start. We will not bring animals to the plant before lunchtime, as a matter of habit, and we don't have enough third-party demand. In addition, it is bitterly cold this morning, so we cannot wash down exterior areas (too much risk of ice formation (animals can too easily be injured)
Indeed, we are there to kill the animals, but we try our hardest not to distress them. When we built our meat plant the architect recommended a book by Temple Grandin, Animal Welfare at Slaughter, which was important to understand why and how slaughterhouses should operate. For us, as a small operator, it was more about husbandry than facilities. Still, it's something we ingrained in our slaughterhouse team; be gentle and quiet.
So the way Jennifer tells me it happened, Two people arrived at the office from the APA and demanded immediate access to our slaughterhouse pens. For Jennifer who knew our schedule already, it was a strange encounter, still, they inspected the five pens we used. She asked them why a Monday morning (especially such a cold day) they said that they were not in charge of their inspection schedule.
Needless to say, we passed with flying colours! Since there were no animals, the yard was totally clean. Our team was all indoors processing two and three-day-old carcasses (we let the meat hang for 24 to 72 hours before we processed further.
Comments