- Gangways and chutes should be designed to reduce clanking and rattling. Place rubber on all areas where metal meets metal to avoid any banging sound. Teach employees not to slam shut gates.
- Wherever animals are housed or being moved, make sure the floor is always anti-slip. Groove the cement floor to avoid that it be slippery. But it is vital that the floor also be kept clean and dry. Do not let urine and feces build up as this can make even a grooved floor slippery.
Diamond grooving should be diagonal to the direction you want the animals to move.
Grooved cement flooring
- Seal any gaps that could cause animals to get their legs caught and risk injury. (The gap underneath the door and floor of the gangway to the slaughter box seen in this photo should have been sealed).
- The gangway leading to the slaughter box should have solid side walls. Solid sides not only avoid legs getting caught, but ease the flow of the animals as there are less distractions to make the animals balk. Animals should also not see people ahead of them as this will scare them from moving forward.
Good example of solid-side gangway
Example of a very poor gangway with many distractions
- The gangway should have a slight curve (NEVER sharp angels though). Cattle like to move back towards where they come from. By making the gangway slightly curved, this not only blocks the animals from seeing what is happening straight ahead but also gives them a feeling of going back to the start. The diagram below, by Dr. Temple Grandin, is a good design of a curved-gangway leading to a squeeze chute (or kill box).
Dr. Temple Grandin’s good design
- The gangway should not have any sharp angles. This always leads to cattle balking and causes a “bottle-neck effect” at the corner, creating stress and panic that can spread through the entire herd.
- The gangway at this Turkish slaughterhouse had a very bad 90 degree angle in it. Each bovine hesitated taking the corner, some even tried to turn around at the dismay of the ever-more frustrated worker.
