I. Pre-slaughter inspection

Live pig's pre-slaughter inspection and management plays a important role in reducing meat pollution, preventing epidemics spread, improving meat quality, ensuring meat safety, and reducing production costs.

Slaughterhouse should accept healthy pigs. Before slaughtering, veterinary should carefully chdeeck pig's health, and groups into forbidden slaughter, emergency slaughter, delayed slaughter, permitted slaughter.

II. Slaughter management

1. Qualified and healthy pigs are driven to the holding pen, the disabled pigs are sent to the emergency slaughtering room, and the sick pigs are treated harmlessly.

2. Pigs should be stopped eating and feed with clean water for 12-24 hours in order to restore their normal physiological state.

3. Pigs should be stopped drinking water 3 hours before slaughter. Pigs should be showed before slaughter to clean dirties and enhance stunning effect.

4. The pigs must be driven to slaughter area by raceway which in the inner eight shape. The raceway starts from wide area, 2-4 pigs are able to pass, and gradually only one pig is able to pass, and raceway can sure no space for passed pig go back. The pig raceway's width is 380-400mm.

III. Stun

The commonly used stunning methods of pig slaughter are electric shock stun and carbon dioxide stun.

1. Electric shock stun: The pigs are instantly stunned by brain-heart stunning machine in temporarily unconscious and in a coma for irresistible slaughtering and bleeding. Stunning pigs ensures slaughter worker's safety and reduce their labor intensity. Slaughter pig in coma reduces the pain when slaughter, and also improves the meat quality.

2. Carbon dioxide stun: The pigs are transported into a closed room or tunnel which contain 65%-75% carbon dioxide (produced by dry ice), the pigs enters a coma after 10~15 seconds then are transported to the slaughter area for slaughter workers to treat.

IV. Slaughter and bloodletting

Stunned pigs must be slaughtered in 30sec. The common bleed methods are: horizontal bleed, hanging bleed and vacuum knife bleed.

1. Horizontal bleed: The stunned pig is slid into the horizontal bloodletting flat conveyor by the chute for slaughter and bleed. Large amount pig blood will be collected to tank while 2-3min flat conveyor transport. This flat bleeding is beneficial on blood collection and utilization, but pig blood is not able to drained completely, lots of residual blood is remained in the pig body.

2. Hanging bleed: The stunned pig is shackled by one hind leg anklet, and is lifted upside down to the bloodletting suspended conveyor for blood draining. This bleeding effect is more thorough, but the collected blood is contaminated.

3. Vacuum knife bleed: The slaughter worker uses a hollow knife with an air extraction device to slaughter pigs, and the collected blood is transferred into a closed container by hose. The blood meets the food hygiene requirements since whole blood collection process maintains blood without pollution by outside.

V. Pig washer

Pig washing equipment is used to clean dirt and blood from pig carcasses to reduce contamination during process.

VI. Pig scalding tank

Scalding the pig carcass can expand the pig's pores for better shaving effect. The pig carcasses must be scalded in 58~62°C water temperature for 6min. The optional scalding tools are pool type, enclosed tank type and steam canel type.

VII. Pig dehairing machine

Commonly used dehairer are mechanical drum type and spiral type. Pig carcasses are automatically sent from the scalding pool to the dehairing machine by rake or conveyor. In the process of shaving, The hair remover machine must ensure no ribs break, no subcutaneous tissue, and above 95% hair removing rate.

VIII. Rinse, anus seal

1. Rinse: Spray the pig carcass before starting carcass process to avoid the pig's internal organs contamination by opening the chest.

2. Anus seal: ligating the rectum and put back into the pig to avoid carcass contamination  with excreta.

IX. Cut offal

1. Cut the white viscera such as tripe, intestine, etc..

2. Cut the white viscera such as heart, liver and lung..

X. Simultaneous health inspection

Worker cut red offal and white offal and place on the quarantine conveyor respectively to ensure particular pig's carcass, red offal and white offal correspond one-to-one. If unhealthy offal is found, the corresponding pig carcasses can be found and dealt with. Qualified and normal offal are respectively transported to the red offal and white offal room to clean and process.

XI. Splitting saw

Used to extend the spine to split a pig carcass in half.

XII. Rapid cooling, meat ripening

1. Quick freezer: The pig carcass is transported into a rapid freezer at -15°C, so that the pig carcass surface temperature drops below 0°C in a relatively short period of time, and an ice film is formed rapidly. Pig carcasses are sent to the chilling room after entering the quick freezer for 1.5 to 2 hrs.

2. The pig carcass is sent to the chilling room, and the curing process is completed after 14~20 hours at the temperature of 0~4℃.

XIII. Deboning and meat cutting

1. Firstly dividing the pig carcass into front legs, hind legs and flanks.

2. Secondly according to local market demand, cutting to neck meat, front leg meat, large rib meat, hind leg meat and other parts of meat.