| Skybird |
04-01-08 05:31 PM |
Cutting the arteria carotis communis (the major arteria you can feel at the side of your neck) actually leads to immediate loss of blood pressure inside the brain and leads to loss of consicousness very, very quickly. It is not about sufficient blood leaving the brain, it is about loss of pressure that is acchieved by even the smallest loss of blood in the brain's system.the thing to be argued about slaughtering an animal this way is the pain felt from the cut itself, because often it is conducted like you can see in war movies as well: an excessive, deep cut from one side to the others as if it is about cutting off the whole head. That is not needed. The blood system is a high-pressure system, and any cut in the mentioned arteria leads to immediate decomporession in the brain, and lights of consiousness go out.
How sensible pressure regulation is yoiu can test yourself if tightly prssing with both hands the left and right side of your neck - you will immediately feel a pressure mounting up in your head, and if you hold tight, it starts to feel very uncomfortable very fast. Also, when you fight with an opponent and get a grab around his neck and his neck into necklock, you can make him oloosing consciousness very fast (necklock is not about cutting off breath, but to stop blood circulation to and from the brain). Now, this is about blood pressure mounting, but when you cut the arteria, is is an almost explosive decompression in the brain, and loss of conscioucness, if the cut is total, happens even faster.
When to slaughter an animal, I think it is good enough to make the cut of the arteria as painless and quick as possible, and giving the animal no sign in advance that something is different this day. A small animal should pass within seconds that way, and a larger one just sliding from the light to the dark side without pain or time for panic. It does not compare to other, more dramtic ways to kill an animal. I once needed to kill a sick, straying dog by arrow, and although hitting and deeply penetrating it's chest from the front, it kept on living for 20 seconds or so, which was no pleasant observation to make. But I only had a swiss pocket knife at hand in that moment, and starting to stab the poor thing with that short blade I imagined to be even more cruel and painful. It possibly did not went optimal that afternoon.
I also saw a film some years ago, about slaughterers, and religious slaugtherers like Jews and muslims use to have to get their meat "clean", whatever that should be. He used a very small, but very sharp knife, and only made a quick cut of some centimeters on the side of the neck to brake the arteria, and did not cut the throat at all. the animals' eyes became calm within 2 or 3 seconds. He also did talk to them, and did it in places outside slaughtering houses, in places the animals could not smell the death of other slaugtered animals.
We are omnivores, and no life exists without taking other life for it's own survival. Even when you eat vegetable only, you take life. the point is to take not more life than necessary, and take it in a way that raises the least ammount of pain and suffering. the more unaware the life being taken is of it's fate, the less fear there is - the better. Vegetable is ideal in this defintion, but many people see it as an extreme to live fully vegetarian, and other people - like me - eat meat on rare occasions only, but nevertheless on these rare occasions: we do. But I almost never buy meat in supermarkets and from mass slaughereig industries. too much chemical and medical drugs and agents in the meat industry, too much suffering for the animals as well, not only from the panic inside slugherhouses, but the often cruel transportations as well. I buy directly from a bio-farmer. More expensive, but as I already said: I don't eat meat often - but when I do, I enjoy it.
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