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 June 30, 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 August 1, 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 June 30, 2012, there were 157,477 Humane Handling 04C02 procedures performed (Table 1). During this time, the percent of noncompliance rate was 0.40%, identical to the 0.40% for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2011.

Suspensions
There were 78 inhumane handling suspensions at 63 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.99% for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2012, compared to 63 inhumane handling suspensions at 50 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.57% for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2011 (Table 2). From the 63 suspended facilities, 3 establishments had 3 suspensions and 9 establishments had 2 suspensions (OPEER suspension data).

Time Spent on HATS Activities
For the 12-month period ending June 30, 2012, the total HATS time was 300,371 hours in 805 FSIS livestock slaughter plants, compared to 320,108 hours for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2011 in 791 FSIS livestock slaughter plants (Table 3). The time spent by Public Health Veterinarians (PHV) was 190,401 hours compared to 109,971 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 June 30, 2012, the following was identified: Livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 2,494,969 in 566 very small plants to 126,462,155 in 62 large plants; the percent noncompliance rate was 0.28% for large plants, .37% for small plants, and 0.49% for very small plants. The HATS time per 04C02 procedure performed ranged from 2.68 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 June 30, 2012, the noncompliance percent rate by district ranged from 0.12% in Lawrence, to 0.90% in Albany. For the same time period, the noncompliance rate per 100,000 livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 0.10 in both Des Moines and Lawrence to 23.32 in Albany (Table 5).

Overall, for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2012, livestock head slaughtered increased when compared to the 12-month period ending June 30, 2011. Also, the overall HATS time decreased from 320,108 hours to 300,371 hours. However, the number of 04C02 procedures increased from 126,522 to 157,477. While the number of noncompliances increased from 512 to 624, the overall noncompliance rate remained unchanged at .40%.