the rabbits were carefully
restrained and slaughter was performed by a well trained slaughter
man using a very sharp knife. Lopez et al. (2008) reported that the
halal slaughtered rabbits had no reaction to the throat cut and no vocalization,
spasms ormovementswere observed during the hanging phase
or after slaughtering. They observed that the rabbits' bodies remained
totally relaxed and floppy on the chain fromthe beginning. The reduced
glycogen reserves could also be explained by the increased anoxic
convulsion observed in gas stunned rabbits which causes increased
the utilization of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by the muscles. The
anesthetic effect of gas stunning has been shown to be responsible for
the increasing rate of glycogenmetabolism(Savenije et al., 2002). Additionally,
CO2 stunning has previously been shown to be responsible for a
decrease in the glycogen level (Henckel et al., 2002).