Was pretty sure that blood is used for something, but still had to websearch for it in spite of working at a slaughterhouse. Linked the result (0). Killing its

Was pretty sure that blood is used for something, but still had to websearch for it in spite of working at a slaughterhouse. Linked the result (0). Killing itself is actually a very interesting process. Cow is led through a series of corridors to a single-cow pen resembling their feeding spots in a cowshed. It puts it's head trough a familiar U-shaped opening (or has to be pushed a little by remotely controllable hind side wall/gate). There it get's calmed down by a slaughterman with a license to kill. He then grabs a big, ceiling mounted, pneumatic bolt gun and skillfully shoots the cow in a specific spot on the forehead (bolt retracts after the shot). This stuns the cow and it literally falls to the ground with it's legs straightened out(1). After stunning, the whole single pen rotates on the back-front (in relation to cow position) axis, by 90 degrees. What was the side wall becomes floor and what was the floor becomes the wall (it's L-shaped). There the difficult part starts. A man in the other room has only seconds to tie a chain to a hind leg and lift the cow before the cow starts kicking. The smoother the process, the more time there is. Halfway trough the lifting it is paused to stab the cow in the main artery, so the cow can momentarily bleed out and as a consequence die. This other room is a place of carnage with floor covered in blood, most of it flowing trough floor grates into big tanks on the floor below. It would be pretty problematic to have the cow aproach by itself if there was only one room with floor covered in blood. Cows still smell what's happening but this L-shaped flipper helps keep a resemblance of normality. 0: https://www.theearthawards.org/red-recycling-how-abattoirs-process-their-bloody-by-product/ https://www.theearthawards.org/red-recycling-how-abattoirs-p... 1: There is a phrase in Polish "Wyciągnąć kopyta" meaning "to die", which literally means "to straighten out one's hooves". Used mostly in books or by older people. I saw it used in books for many years before I witnessed it in reality at work. I guess the people of the past were much more aware of where the meat comes from.