A slaughter house is a facility where animals are killed and processed into meat foods. They're the beginning's of where your hamburger, and several other meats, came from. Many people are, like the other issues within this site, quite clueless about slaughterhouses. You might assume that it is just a place where an animal is humanely killed and then shipped to your local food marts. However, the process is much 'dirtier' than that. When you're done reading this section, you will probably take on a new meaning of a 'slaughter house'.

Let's start with the steps of the process:

1. Cows are received by truck or rail from a ranch, farm, or feedlot.
2. Cows are herded into holding pens.
3. Cattle are rendered unconscious by applying an electric shock of 300 volts and 2 amps to the back of the head, effectively stunning the animal,^[8] or by use of a captive bolt pistol to the front of the cow's head (a pneumatic or cartridge-fired captive bolt). Swine can be rendered unconscious by CO₂/inert gas stunning. (This step is prohibited under strict application of Halal and Kashrut codes.)
4. Animals are hung upside down by one of their hind legs on the processing line.