S.L. 36.38 Art. 6Building requirements.

Poultry slaughterhouses must have:

(a) a room or covered space which is sufficiently large and easy to cleanse and disinfect, for the ante-mortem inspection of poultry;

(b) a special room which is easy to cleanse and disinfect, exclusively for poultry suffering from, or suspected to be suffering from, disease;

(c) a slaughter room large enough for stunning and bleeding on the one hand, and plucking and any scalding on the other, to be carried out in separate places: Provided that any communication between the slaughter room and the room referred to in paragraph

(a) above, other than a narrow opening through which only slaughtered poultry may pass, must have an automatically closing door;

(d) an evisceration and preparation room which is large enough for evisceration to be carried out in a place sufficiently far away from the other work stations, or separated from them by a partition, so as to prevent contamination. Any communication between the evisceration and preparation room and the slaughter room, other than the narrow opening through which only slaughtered poultry may pass, must have an automatically closing door;

(e) a dispatching room, if necessary;

(f) one room or more sufficiently large fur chilling and/or refrigeration;

(g) cold stores. Where cold stores are situated outside the slaughterhouse they must be licensed and shall be supervised by an official veterinarian. The Director shall be responsible for approving these stores and for withdrawing the approval. The cold stores shall be equipped with a thermograph sealed by the Director or officials delegated by him. The premises shall be subject to inspection at any time without notice by the Superintendent of Public Health or by an authorised officer on his behalf;

(h) a room or space for collecting of feathers unless these are treated as waste;

(i) lockable premises, situated separately from the other rooms in the processing area, which are temperature controlled and reserved for the separate storage of poultry meat which has been temporarily detained and of unhealthy meat declared unfit for human consumption and waste, where such meat and waste is not removed each day from the slaughterhouse;

(j) a room which is temperature controlled and situated separately from the other rooms in the processing area, exclusively for the technical treatment or destruction of poultry meat declared unfit for human consumption, meat which is excluded from use for human consumption and waste and by-products from slaughter, intended for industrial purposes, if such technical treatment or destruction is carried out on the premises;

(k) changing rooms, wash basins, showers and flush lavatories; the latter shall not open directly onto the work rooms; the wash basins shall be near the lavatories and shall have hot and cold running water, materials for cleansing and disinfecting the hands, and disposable hand towels;

(l) a facility or arrangement to be approved by the Director, for the disposal of dung unless dung is immediately and hygienically removed;

(m) a place and adequate facilities for cleansing and disinfecting of cages and vehicles;

(n) an adequately equipped, lockable room for the exclusive use of the veterinary services;

(o) in the work rooms, adequate equipment for the cleansing and disinfecting of hands and tools; such equipment must be as near as possible to the work stations and taps must not be hand operable; these facilities must have hot and cold running water, cleaning and disinfecting products and disposable hand towels; for cleansing instruments the temperature of the water must be of not less than 82 degrees Celsius;

(p) facilities enabling the veterinary inspections provided for in these Regulations to be carried out efficiently at any time;

(q) an adequate surrounding wall or other means of enclosure;

(r) without prejudice to paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) above, adequate separation of the clean area from the contaminated parts of the building;

(s) in the rooms mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (i) above: - waterproof flooring, which is easy to cleanse and disinfect, and so constructed that water can drain away easily; - smooth walls with light coloured washable coating or paint at a height of at least two metres, with rounded edges and corners;

(t) adequate natural or artificial lighting which does not distort colours in the rooms set aside for live or slaughtered poultry;

(u) an adequate supply of hot and cold drinking water under pressure and a water disposal system which meets hygienic requirements;

(v) proper equipment for protection against pests such as insects and rodents;

(w) instruments and any equipment that comes into contract with poultry during processing and storage which are made of non-corrodible material and are easy to cleanse and disinfect;

(x) special air-tight and water-tight non-corrodible containers which cannot be forced open, for collecting meat which has been declared unfit for human consumption.