Report on religious slaughter practices in Italy.
The term 'religious slaughter' commonly refers to the practice of killing animals without stunning, according to the precepts of Jewish and Muslim religions. The aim of this paper is to assess the situation concerning ritual slaughtering in not-stun bovines, small ruminants, and poultry in Italy in 2012. The study was divided into 2 phases. During the rst phase, preliminary data about all slaughterhouses authorized for ritual slaughter in Italy in 2012 are collected through the compilation of a questionnaire sent to each plants. The second step involved a sampling of not-stun animals religiously slaughtered in 5 selected plants. Authors collected and compiled all informations about management, restrain system and rite taking into account in particular animal welfare.