Following the country’s first case of BSE in December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a series of guidelines to slaughterhouses on best practice.  Unveiled by Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman, the guidelines stipulate five basic rules when selecting cattle for slaughter. 

The first concerns downers, or cattle unable to walk. The US industry slaughters some 35 million head of cattle each year, of which 0.0005% or 195,000 are downers.  The Holstein cow that had mad cow disease was a downer that was crippled while giving birth and this masked the effects of the disease.  To safeguard against this, the new rule states that meat from any animal that cannot walk cannot enter the food chain

The second rule prohibits the use of small intestines or tonsils – organs that are  known to concentrate prions, the rogue proteins that cause the disease.  Third, mechanically separated meat will not enter the food chain, nor will the BSE-susceptible skulls, brains, spinal cords or dorsal root ganglia (a cluster of nerve cells connected to the spinal cord) of animals over 30 months old.  Mechanically separated meat is a paste-like product produced by forcing bones with attached edible meat through a sieve at high pressure.

One question being asked by packers concerns Angus cattle destined for Japan. Weighing in 1,600 pounds when slaughter-ready, these animals are around 30% heavier than cattle bred for U.S. meat consumption, a factor which in turn makes them vulnerable to trips and falls.  Kenneth Petersen, a veterinarian with the USDA, has made it clear that if an animal cannot get back on its feet, it is a downer, but in that an Angus cow is worth $1200 at this point, it is perhaps unsurprising that the objection has been raised.

Another question being asked of Petersen concerns veal. Dairy cows must be bred every year to continue producing milk. Around half of their offspring are male and thus of no use to dairies and about 15% of these are slaughtered. In that some of these veal calves are one, two or three days old, they have not yet reached walking stage when slaughtered, a factor which in turn means they too are technically downers.  Petersen has said that the calves should be kept long enough for them to walk before being slaughtered.

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