Transporting cattle from farm to slaughterhouse is often stressful for the animal, which can impair the meat quality. With the gunshot method, the animal is stunned with a rifle shot while together with familiar herd members in their home environment, exsanguinated and transported to a nearby slaughterhouse. Aiming to assess the consequences for animal welfare and food safety, 20 Hereford steers aged 18–54 months were shot with .22 Magnum ammunition from an elevated position and distance of 6–12 m. Each time, only one out of four to seven animals in a 16 × 10 m corral was shot. Dressing was done on farm. Based on the animals’ behaviour and blood concentrations of cortisol, glucose and lactate, stress levels before shooting were low. Eleven animals were deeply stunned, the consciousness of seven others was ambiguous, and two were poorly stunned. Two animals were reshot. The bleed-out was satisfactory for all animals, and little or no faecal contamination was found on the carcasses. We conclude that the gunshot method is applicable to large beef steers while maintaining a satisfactory level of animal welfare and food safety, provided that the necessary conditions can be attained.

<p>Beef quality parameters can be negatively affected by pre-slaughter stress. Slaughter via gunshot directly on the pasture appears to be suitable for the reduction of pre-slaughter stress by avoiding stressors such as transportation, lairage and human contact. The effect of slaughtering via gunshot on sensory and objective measures of beef quality parameters for the <em>Musculus longissimus dorsi </em>of Galloway steers was analyzed and compared to conventional slaughter at the abattoir using captive-bolt stunning. The Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) was significantly (P &lt; 0.01) lower for the meat of the animals slaughtered via gunshot (arithmetic mean (AM) gunshot: 4.34 kg; AM captive-bolt pistol: 4.77 kg). However, trained assessors were not able to recognize this difference (P &gt; 0.05). No significant differences (P &gt; 0.05) were observed for cooking loss and the sensory quality evaluation of juiciness. As measured by the WBSF, the meat of the animals slaughtered via gunshot was slightly more tender than was the meat of the animals stunned with a captive-bolt pistol. However, for the cooking loss and sensory evaluations, no effect of the slaughter methods was observed. Nevertheless, this study reveals the potential that slaughter via gunshot provides for the improvement of beef quality.</p>

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