The Rural Voice, 2003-07, Page 31d.►
Renecker has been experimenting
with "nutritional therapy", learning
proper nutrition in the days leading
up to slaughter can reduce stress and
with it, dark -cutting meat. "We want
to minimize stress which hurts
consistency, quality and food safety."
At the abattoir its important for
consistency of meat quality to have a
set-up to minimize stress, bleed out
promptlyand cool down the carcass
quickly.
This can be a problem for many
abattoirs that don't have
handling facilities for elk or
bison. Often the animal has to be shot
in the trailer, then hauled into the
plant for bleeding out, and
processing. If there is more than one
animal in the trailer, the stress on the
other animals can increase once one
is shot.
As well, the delay in putting the
animal on the rail to bleed can lead to
reduced meat quality. For quality you
have to get the animal on the rail in a
rapid manner, he says.
Renecker has been researching a
portable processing plant built in
Sweden which could handle 40-50
large animals a day in self-contained
trailers that include everything from
the kill floor to coolers and a cutting
room. The Canadian Food Inspection
Agency wouldn't allow the plant to
operate as a mobile plant but even if
it was relegated to a permanent site it
would be cheaper than a permanent
installation, he feels.
For the Canadian elk industry to
move forward on the meat side, some
sort of improved processing will
soon be necessary.
Currently there are an estimated
800 elk farms in Canada with 35,000
head. Prior to the CWD scare, the
industry had developed rapidly in the
last three decades. Though elk were
farmed in Pennsylvania as early as
the late 1880s, most of the growth
has come since the 1970s. Prior to
that "game farms" raised and sold
live animals, but these operations
were more like zoos than commercial
farms, according to the Alberta Elk
Commission.
It was velvet that triggered the
growth when Asian buyers contacted
North American producers. With the
knowledge that there was a profitable
market for the ground up antler as a
health supplement in Asia, farmers
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