Introduction The slaughter practice involves several potentially stressful procedures, such as mixing of pigs, transport, manipulation and food restriction. Stress reactions at slaughter may be due to physical (food restriction; fatigue; pain due to slaps, shocks or fights) and psychological discomfort (disruption of the social group; fear, due to novelty and human presence). Behavioural stress...

BACKGROUND Veterinarians are faced with significant conflicts of interest when issuing certificates for the transport and slaughter of acutely injured and casualty livestock. In a recent Policy Delphi study, emergency and casualty slaughter certification was a key concern identified by veterinary professionals in Ireland. In this case study (the third in a series of three resulting from a resea...

The objective of this study was to compare the prevalence of Salmonella in market-age turkeys on-farm and at slaughter (i.e., before and after feed withdrawal, catching, loading, transportation, and preslaughter holding). Thirty birds were randomly selected from each of 6 commercial turkey flocks scheduled to be loaded and shipped to the abattoir during the evening of the same day. Selected bir...

Th e aim of the study was to compare carcass traits between Cika and Brown cattle of all slaughter categories. Th e data used were collected in Slovenian slaughterhouses from 2007 to 2010. Aft er the slaughter carcass weight was recorded and carcass conformation and fatness were scored according to the EUROP system. Net daily gain was calculated. Data were analysed by GLM procedure of statistic...

Piétrain (P), Large White (LW) and Belgian Landrace stress negative (BN) boars were slaughtered at 50, 70, 90 or 110 kg live weight to investigate breed differences and the effect of slaughter weight on boar taint prevalence. Boar taint was quantified by four different methodologies: sensory evaluation of neckfat heated with a hot iron in the slaughterhouse, sensory evaluation of meat by consum...

Changing the body composition of beef has implications for the entire beef production system. The dynamic nature of an animal's body composition and the production system itself make predictions of the implications of genetic change in body composition difficult. The cow-calf, stocker, and feeder segments of the production system will be affected differently. Leaner cattle tend to be slaughtere...

At 34 days of age, 376 crossbred rabbits of both sexes were housed in 16 open-top collective pens (1.68 m2) according to a 2×2×2 factorial arrangement with two types of pen floor (plastic v. wooden slatted), two stocking densities (12 v. 16 animals/m2) and two slaughter ages (76 v. 83 days). The rabbits were examined for growth performance, slaughter results and meat quality. The effect of gend...

Data (n = 1,746) collected from 1985 through 1995 on Korean Native Cattle by the National Livestock Research Institute of Korea were used to estimate genetic parameters for marbling score, dressing percentage, and longissimus muscle area, with backfat thickness, slaughter age, or slaughter weight as covariates. Estimates were obtained with REML. Model 1 included animal genetic and residual rand...

one hundred and seventy four ghezel and 130 mehraban weaned male lambs were utilized to study the effect of on post weaning growth on slaughter weight and carcass traits. the lambs in each breed were randomly assigned to predetermined slaughter weight groups of 30, 40 or 50 kg and were so far fattened as to reach their assigned slaughter weights. the average post weaning daily gain was estimate...

A novel technology for inducing unconsciousness prior to slaughter has been developed (DTS). For commercial reasons meat quality attributes are important, and impacts on endocrine responses provide an indication of animal welfare. We compared endocrine, ultimate pH (after 1 10 weeks storage) cattle carcases processed using DTS with those penetrative captive bolt (CB). There were no significant ...