Animal welfare during transport and slaughter of beef cattle

Abstract

Objective: To review how transport and stunning of cattle affect animal welfare. Approach: During the transport of beef cattle to slaughter plants, several factors affect animal welfare, such as travel time, stress, and load density. Additionally, the correct stunning of cattle helps comply with the animal welfare guidelines established by different protocols such as Welfare Quality®. Study limitations/Implications: Meat quality is affected by several factors, being of utmost importance the way animals are transported to the slaughterhouse, and they are stunned. Therefore, it is critical to perform these stages properly to obtain good quality meat; besides, it is a welfare issue. Conclusions: It is critical to comply with transport and slaughter procedures that guarantee good beef meat quality and ensure animal welfare to avoid stress in cattle as possible.

The Perception of Emerging Cattle Farmers on Extension and Advisory Services in Improving the Welfare of Cattle in Sinthumule-Kutama Areas of Makhado Municipality, Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa

“…For instance, for beef cattle, animal welfare during the transportation and slaughter of beef cattle affects the meat quality. It is critical to comply with proper procedures for transporting and slaughtering cattle (Castro de Jesús et al, 2021).…”

Investigating the impact of pre-slaughter management factors on indicators of fed beef cattle welfare – a scoping review

“…Although the cattle industry has made great efforts to reduce stress during pre-slaughter processes (da Costa et al, 2012;Grandin, 2012;Edwards-Callaway and Calvo-Lorenzo, 2020), there are some unavoidable events that can impact welfare even if relatively brief. Several studies have previously explored the impacts of various stressors in the pre-slaughter phase on animal welfare outcomes (Hogan et al, 2007;Terlouw et al, 2008;Weeks, 2008;Mendonca et al, 2016;Njisane and Muchenje, 2017a;Castro de Jest et al, 2021), and attention has been given to reducing the negative impacts associated with pre-slaughter management (Grandin, 2014;Frisk et al, 2018;Grandin and Cockram, 2020).…”