There is a Torah prohibition against slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day. This prohibition applies even when separate people are doing the slaughtering.
Nowadays when animals are raised for slaughter in large commercial farms and (presumably) bought and sold somewhat regularly, are any precautions taken to avoid slaughtering a parent and offspring on the same day? If so, what are these precautions?
It is not required by Halacha to inquire as to whether a cow is the offspring of another that was slaughtered on the same day unless we have a reason to suspect two cows are related. While modern slaughter houses do slaughter mostly female cows and male steer, there is nothing done to investigate whether any of the animals are related. Since most faculties don’t process both veal and full grown cows together, it would be next to impossible to verify if two full grown cows coming from the same ranch are related. This answer is based on my experience as a shochet and having worked in slaughter houses for years.
