Summary

Effective and ongoing training are important to ensure that animal welfare standards are maintained during the slaughter of livestock shipped overseas. This is a key component of the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS).

Small abattoirs which only put through a few animals each day can pose a challenge when it comes to providing opportunities for new slaughtermen to get training and practice proper stunning techniques.

To help address this, a highly engaging and realistic virtual environment was developed for use in training.

The virtual reality (VR) tool will support workers to gain confidence and allow trainers to assess their competency before exposure to live animals, to ensure optimal welfare outcomes. It will also allow for repetitive practicing of technique.

This project was managed by the Livestock Export RD&E Program, a collaboration between LiveCorp and Meat & Livestock Australia.

Objectives

• Create a highly engaging and realistic cattle stunning training resource for in-market abattoir personnel.

• Improve the accuracy of stunning for in-market abattoir personnel.

• Capture potential improvements to enhance future training across different markets.

Key findings

• The average stunning scores improved moderately over five sessions, increasing from 80% in Session 1 to 83% in Session 5.

• The average time to stun improved significantly from 65 seconds per stun to 47 seconds.

• 68% of trainees saw an increase in their average stun scores between Session 1 and Session 5.

Benefits to industry

The implementation and adoption of VR-based training will improve the training environment and ultimately encourage the improvement of animal health and welfare practices in market. It will also support the maintenance of high levels of compliance with ESCAS and its requirements for the humane slaughter of livestock.