United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service - Office of Field Operations (FSIS – OFO)

Overview
This report provides an overview of humane handling (HH) and slaughter procedures (04C02) performed by FSIS inspection program personnel (IPP) in Federally Inspected livestock slaughter facilities. Also included is information on noncompliance records (NR) issued for inhumane handling, HH verification time recorded in the FSIS Humane Handling Activity Tracking System (HATS), FSIS slaughter data, and inhumane handling suspensions for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012.

The FSIS Data Analysis and Integration Group (DAIG) extracted data on inspection activities, slaughter totals, and HH time from the FSIS Data Warehouse including data from establishments converted to PHIS. This data was extracted May 8, 2012. The suspension data was provided by FSIS' Office of Program Evaluation, Enforcement and Review (OPEER).

Humane Handling Procedures Performed
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012, there were 146,952 Humane Handling 04C02 procedures performed (Table 1). During this time, the percent of noncompliance rate was 0.41%, compared to 0.46% for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011.

Suspensions
There were 68 inhumane handling suspensions at 56 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 1.08% for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012, compared to 67 inhumane handling suspensions at 53 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.63% for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011 (Table 2). From the 56 suspended facilities, 1 establishment had 4 suspensions and 9 establishments had 2 suspensions (OPEER suspension data).

Time Spent on HATS Activities
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012, the total HATS time was 298,109 hours in 805 FSIS livestock slaughter plants, compared to 313,223 hours for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011 in 794 FSIS livestock slaughter plants (Table 3). The time spent by Public Health Veterinarians (PHV) was 173,371 hours compared to 124,738 hours by non-PHV inspection personnel.

Plant Size Comparison of Livestock Facilities, Head Slaughtered, Procedures Performed and HATS Activities
When breaking down the slaughter, 04C02 procedures, and HATS time data by plant size for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012, the following was identified: Livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 2,179,325 in 561 very small plants to 124,312,528 in 63 large plants; the percent noncompliance rate was 0.33% for large plants, .41% for small plants, and 0.46% for very small plants. The HATS time per 04C02 procedure performed ranged from 3.02 hours per 04C02 procedure performed in large plants to 1.19 hours per 04C02 procedure performed in very small plants (Table 4).

District Comparison of Livestock Facilities, Head Slaughtered, Procedures Performed and HATS Activities
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012, the noncompliance percent rate by district ranged from 0.17% in Lawrence, to 0.77% in Minneapolis. For the same time period, the noncompliance rate per 100,000 livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 0.10 in Des Moines to 17.97 in Albany (Table 5).

Overall, for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2012, livestock head slaughtered decreased slightly when compared to the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011. Also, the overall HATS time decreased from 313,223 hours to 298,109 hours. However, the number of 04C02 procedures increased from 124,546 to 146,952. While the number of noncompliances increased from 572 to 605, the overall noncompliance rate decreased from .46% to .41%.