Since last October, Japan has checked all cattle taken to slaughter for mad cow disease.
When taken to slaughter, pigs generally weigh between 90 and 135 kg (200 and 300 pounds) and provide about 70 to 74 percent of that weight in meat.
"We are like lambs being taken to slaughter, we are resigned to our fate," sighs one AKP deputy.A few hardy souls pin their hopes on Western support.
Horses, having been bred in large numbers only a few years earlier, were taken to slaughter by the thousands; a change in forestry tax policy made previously state-supported horse-powered forestry unprofitable and further discouraged keeping horses.
But state livestock officials and federal animal health agents opposed the transfer, and the group's 15 females — which are at higher risk for brucellosis than males — were loaded onto trucks taken to slaughter on Wednesday, the AP reports.
"What they said was, 'We're not sheep for you to take to the slaughter with our heads down.' " Like many Greeks, she said she had voted for Syriza, but wanted Greece to stay in the euro zone.
"I find it more messed up breeding an animal to take to a slaughter house," explained Teitur Lassen, a Faroese singer songwriter, who has toured the world and scooped numerous awards for his music in Denmark.
I asked David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist who specializes in agriculture and energy, if it might be possible to calculate precisely how much oil it will take to grow my steer to slaughter weight.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, approximately 138,000 horses were taken to Mexico and Canada for slaughter in 2010.
The difference between Dennis' birds and those of other producers is the time it takes to get from slaughter to table, and the condition in which it gets there.
Many pigs from free-range production systems are not taken to the formal slaughter facilities where meat inspection can be carried out [ 20, 21].
