TRANSPONDERS - INJECTATES IN THE SLAUGHTERING CHAIN

The slaughterhouse comes at the end of a long chain of production. The information about an individual animal or fattening group that has be en collected up to this point of time is not usually of any use to the slaughterhouse, although it would be needed for quality documentation . On the other hand the slaughterhouse itself ascertains parameters re lating to slaughter yield, quality and health which could be applied t o earlier sectors. It seems a good idea to set up a common ''data pool '' that can be used by all those involved. One condition for this is, however, that the data should be obtained as far as possible independe ntly of personnel and with a high degree of certainty. Electronically readable tags are a central element of this procedure. They make it po ssible to identify animals automatically and to link their data from t he production or fattening stage with data from the slaughtering and c utting stages and thus create a point of intersection between records that have hitherto remained separate.