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 September 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 November 19, 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 September 30, 2012, there were 171,953 Humane Handling 04C02 procedures performed (Table 1). This is a 34% increase from the 128,064 procedures performed for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2011.

Suspensions
There were 72 inhumane handling suspensions at 58 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.97% for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2012, compared to 61 inhumane handling suspensions at 46 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.66% for the 12 month period ending September 30, 2011 (Table 2). From the 58 suspended facilities, 3 establishments had 3 suspensions and 8 establishments had 2 suspensions (OPEER suspension data).

Time Spent on HATS Activities
For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2012, the total HATS time was 328,157 hours in 806 FSIS livestock slaughter plants, compared to 318,060 hours for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2011 in 807 FSIS livestock slaughter plants (Table 3). The time spent by Public Health Veterinarians (PHV) was 212,996 hours compared to 115,162 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 September 30, 2012, the following was identified: : Livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 2,861,347 in 572 very small plants to 126,689,266 in 62 large plants; the percent noncompliance rate was 0.26% for large plants, 0.41% for small plants, and 0.48% for very small plants. The HATS time per 04C02 procedure performed ranged from 2.48 hours per 04C02 procedure performed in large plants to 1.29 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 September 30, 2012, the noncompliance percent rate by district ranged from 0.10% in Springfield, to 0.69% in Alameda. For the same time period, the noncompliance rate per 100,000 livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 0.09 in Springdale to 3.55 in Philadelphia (Table 5).

Overall, for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2012, livestock head slaughtered increased when compared to the 12-month period ending September 30, 2011. Also, the overall HATS time increased from 318,060 hours to 328,157 hours. The number of 04C02 procedures increased from 128,064 to 171,953 and the number of noncompliances increased from 503 to 684.