we raise meat animals and have butchered some for our own use... since many of our neighbors are farmers and/or hunters we use a rifle to do the killing and then cut the jugular to bleed them out. Since the animal is at home and offered a favorite food they are not stressed and never know what hit them. we only do one at a time and away from the rest...

it's the big industrialized farming corporations that are run by bean counters, not husbandrymen that know and care for their stock, that I see as the real problem