Stress indicators in cattle submitted to different preslaughter rest times

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of pre-slaughter time about some blood constituents used as stress indicators in the evaluation of animal welfare in cattle. In the practice of ethology, animal welfare is assessed through physiological and behavioral indicators. For the determination of serum biomarkers of animal stress, a total of 180 animals was used, divided into two major groups according to the time of pre-slaughter. In the acceptable group, the animals had a pre-slaughter time up to 24 hours and in the not acceptable group the pre-slaughter time was greater than 24 h. These two groups were split up into three animal categories (males, females and castrated males). In this study, 30 samples were collected from each animal category of the two groups, acceptable and not acceptable, totaling 180 samples. Samples were separated for analysis of muscle enzymes creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase (CK and LDH), glucose and cortisol. Physiological values, regardless of the animal category and pre-slaughter time, were higher than the normal values of reference, expressing the prior management effect on animal welfare. The data clearly show a need to update and adapt the entire production chain to animal welfare practices, with the objective of producing competitive quality meat in the world market.

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

“…Lairage at the slaughter plant presents a particularly challenging period prior to slaughter as several factors such as lairage duration, mixing with unfamiliar cattle, stocking density and temperature microclimates differ in severity at each plant and offer their own varying degrees of stress for cattle (Edwards-Callaway and Calvo-Lorenzo, 2020). Several studies explored the impact of varying lengths of time spent in lairage on physiological outcomes (Tadich et al, 2005;Liotta et al, 2007;Giannetto et al, 2011;de Marchi et al, 2022). Allowing animals to rest in lairage for longer durations has shown a reduction in: CK and LDH activity (Chulayo and Muchenje, 2017), glucose, lactate and protein blood levels (Pighin et al, 2015) and cortisol concentrations (Liotta et al, 2007;Chulayo et al, 2016).…”

“…As animal welfare continues to grow as a critical component of slaughter in the beef industry, a significant number of studies have emerged covering the impacts of pre-slaughter management factors and their effects on indicators of fed beef cattle welfare (Losada-Espinosa et al, 2018;Edwards-Callaway and Calvo-Lorenzo, 2020;Losada-Espinosa et al, 2021;de Marchi et al, 2022). However, a formal review and compilation of these studies does not exist.…”