• chaogomu@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Similar, but in practice it’s quite a bit different.

      Halal requires a swift cut with a sharp knife across the throat of the animal. Severing the spine is expressly forbidden.

      The animal then bleeds out, which can still be a quick death, but nowhere near as fast as decapitation, which is most commonly used in kosher butchery.

      The bolt pistol used in modern butchery can also be instant. You place what looks like a pneumatic drill on the cow’s forehead, and then pull the trigger. It fires a stainless steel rod forward into the cow’s skull. The rod is captive at the end of its travel, so you just have to cock the tool, and you can use it again (provided it’s actually pneumatically powered, and not powered by a blank round, or something else, there are a lot of versions, even some that are designed to not penetrate the skull.)

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          I look that sort of stuff up myself.

          Now I’m not finding a source for the guillotine machine… I’ve seen one in person, and it had a spinning disc blade, because there are Jewish dietary laws that say you can’t press the blade into the neck, it must be a slice.

          It might also have been a case of an enterprising butcher being inventive and sidestepping the rules…