Pre-slaughter factors affecting the incidence of severe bruising in cattle carcasses

Bethancourt-Garcia, Javier Alexander; Vaz, Ricardo Zambarda; Vaz, Fabiano Nunes; Silva, Willian Barros; Pascoal, Leonir Luiz; Mendonça, Fábio Souza; Vara, Carina Crizel da; Nuñez, Amoracyr José Costa; Restle, João

doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2019.02.009

Cited by 31 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Previous research has reported variable results in regard to the impact of sex class on bruising prevalence ( Weeks et al, 2002 ; Strappini et al, 2009 ; Romero et al, 2013 ; Bethancourt-Garcia et al, 2019 ; Mendonça et al, 2019 ). In this study, bruising prevalence varied across different sex class types ( P < 0.001); within the study sample, 36.5% of steers (95% CI: 31.7, 41.6; n = 378), 52.8% of cows (45.6, 60.0; 193), and 64.3% of bulls (no CI calculated due to sample size; 14) were bruised ( Table 2 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Previously published studies in the United States and Canada have reported bruise prevalence ranging from 40% and 68%, with percentages traditionally reported by animal sex class, that is, cull cows and bulls versus finished steers and heifers ( Van Donkersgoed et al, 2001 ; Eastwood et al, 2017 ; Harris et al, 2017 ; Lee et al, 2017 ). Studies outside of North America have reported larger variation in bruise prevalence among studies, ranging from 8% to 99% ( Jarvis et al, 1995 ; Marshall, 1977 ; Gallo et al, 1999 ; Costa et al, 2006 ; Andrade et al, 2008 ; Strappini et al, 2010 ; Romero et al, 2013 ; Huertas et al, 2015 ; Bethancourt-Garcia et al, 2019 ). The considerable variations in sample size, size of slaughter plant, bruise severity, scoring system, animal type, and management procedures of studies likely contributes to the substantial spread in bruise prevalence across studies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During marketing, cattle are exposed to many factors that have the potential to impact bruise prevalence at slaughter ( Warriss, 1990 ). Rough handling, mixing with horned animals, transport through auction markets, transport distance, density during transport, and facilities in poor condition have all been shown to increase the risk of bruising in cattle ( Shaw et al, 1976 ; Huertas et al, 2010 , 2018 ; Strappini et al, 2010 , 2012 ; Mendonça et al, 2016 ; Bethancourt-Garcia et al, 2019 ; Knock and Carroll, 2019 ; Lima et al, 2019 ). Furthermore, these factors can interact with one another and have a cumulative effect on bruising risk.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, if an animal experienced a traumatic event there was no direct reporting of that individual’s bruise score, just the score for the overall lot. Collecting data on lots of cattle is the method commonly utilized in studies like this because following individual animals through the entire slaughtering process is challenging ( Lee et al, 2017 ; Mendonça et al, 2018 ; Bethancourt-Garcia et al, 2019 ). Although Lee et al (2017) did not report any correlation between a traumatic event and bruise prevalence, they did report a relationship between trailer type, breed type, and traumatic events, identifying this as an area to explore in future studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From unloading to trimming: studying bruising in individual slaughter cattle

Kline

Weller

Grandin

et al. 2020

Translational Animal Science

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Livestock bruising is both an animal welfare concern and a detriment to the economic value of carcasses. Understanding the causes of bruising is challenging due to the numerous factors that have been shown to be related to bruise prevalence. While most cattle bruising studies collect and analyze data on truckload lots of cattle, this study followed a large number (N = 585) of individual animals from unloading through post-mortem processing at five different slaughter plants. Both visual bruises and their location before carcasses trimming and carcass trim weight post-mortem. By linking post-mortem data to animal sex, breed, trailer compartment, and traumatic events at unloading, a rich analysis of a number of factors related to bruise prevalence was developed. Results showed varying levels of agreement with other published bruising studies, underscoring the complexity of assessing the factors that affect bruising. Bruising prevalence varied across different sex class types (P < 0.001), 36.5% of steers (95% CI: 31.7, 41.6; n = 378), 52.8% of cows (45.6, 60.0; 193) and 64.3% of bulls (no CI calculated due to sample size; 14) were bruised. There was a difference in bruise prevalence by trailer compartment (P = 0.035) in potbelly trailers indicating that cattle transported in the top deck were less likely to be bruised (95% CI: 26.6, 40.4; n = 63) compared to cattle that transported in the bottom deck (95% CI: 39.6, 54.2; n = 89). Our results indicated that visual assessment of bruising underestimated carcass bruise trimming. While 42.6% of the carcasses were visibly bruised, 57.9% of carcasses were trimmed due to bruising, suggesting that visual assessment is not able to capture all of the carcass loss associated with bruising. Furthermore, bruises that appeared small visually were often indicators of larger, sub-surface bruising, creating an “iceberg effect” of trim loss due to bruising

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

From unloading to trimming: studying bruising in individual slaughter cattle

Kline

Weller

Grandin

et al. 2020

Translational Animal Science

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show abstract

“…Likewise, cull cows are kept longer in lairage, a stage in which they are grouped with other bovines from different categories (heifers, bulls, and steers), and kept without food and occasionally without water [ 11 , 14 ]. These factors affect their physical condition [ 3 ], increase stress and pain levels [ 11 ], increase the probability of contusions [ 16 , 17 ], make them difficult to control, and decreases their fitness to be considered fit for slaughter [ 18 ]. Many cows culled from dairy farms arrive at abattoirs in compromised conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal-Based Measurements to Assess the Welfare of Dairy Cull Cows during Pre-Slaughter

Peñuela

Rodríguez-Palomares

Sánchez

2020

Animals

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Culling is the departure of cows from the herd as a result of sale, slaughter, health, national regulations, salvage, or death. Cull cows are removed from farms with poor health, production, behavior, or other problems, and during pre-slaughter they are sometimes kept without food and water, which compromises their well-being. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the welfare state of culled dairy cows during pre-slaughter using some animal-based measurements and to identify possible associations between them. Data were recorded for 62 different dairy production farms referring to 137 cull cows (n = 60 Holstein and n = 77 Normandy crosses) slaughtered in an abattoir in Colombia (South America). In this study, we evaluated and recorded land transport conditions, the health of animals on arrival to the abattoir, human–animal interaction, stress physiological variables and the association of these variables with characteristic bruises on the carcass, the lairage time, the presence of diseases, and the stage of pregnancy. In total, 98.5% of the cows were very thin, 35.7% were pregnant, and 84.7% had bruising on the carcass. In total, 74.5% had clinical conditions; these included skin lesions (32.4%), mastitis (27.5%), lameness (21.6%), vulvar secretions (8.8%), diarrhea (6.8%), and eye carcinoma (2.9%). The total number of cull cows with bruises during pre-slaughter was associated with lot size, transport time, presence of pregnancy, body score condition, and creatine kinase levels. The results suggest that the cows were not fit for transport because their health was severely affected before they left the farms. The animal-based indicators used in this study are useful for evaluating the welfare of cull dairy cows at abattoirs.

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The Welfare of Cattle at Slaughter

Grandin

2023

Cattle Welfare in Dairy and Beef Systems

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Pre-slaughter factors affecting the incidence of severe bruising in cattle carcasses

Cited by 31 publications

References 32 publications

From unloading to trimming: studying bruising in individual slaughter cattle

From unloading to trimming: studying bruising in individual slaughter cattle

Animal-Based Measurements to Assess the Welfare of Dairy Cull Cows during Pre-Slaughter

The Welfare of Cattle at Slaughter

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