Pre-Slaughter Welfare

Question 1

Common causes of dead on arrival

Answer 1

• pigs hyperthermia, metabolic acidosis
• sheep smothering and ill health
• chicken trauma (haemorrhage and air sac damage) and congestive heart failure

Question 2

How can antemortem and postmortem trauma be distingushed?

Answer 2

Haemorrhage antemortem

Question 3

Causes of fatal trauma in poultry

Answer 3

• dislocated hips
• liver rupture
• head trauma
• intra peritoneal haemorrhage (not liver)

Question 4

% carcasse bruising

Answer 4

• cattle 1.67%
• sheep 0.14%
• pigs 1.48%

Question 5

Stocking density of trailers

Answer 5

Sufficient to support each other

- not too tight to cause tramping and hyperthermia

Question 6

Causes of back bruising in cattle

Answer 6

• other cattle mounting

- reestablishing hierachy when new groups mixed market etc

Question 7

Causes red wing tips

Answer 7

• can be pre slaughter
• common at slaughter and stunning (tonic clonic contraction post mortem)
• not necessarily welfare issue

Question 8

Why may moving crates of birds around at rough angles be bad?

Answer 8

• bruising

- contamination carcasses

Question 9

What is required legally in slaughter houses ?

Answer 9

• alternative slaughter lines
• though may take few hours to start up (need to clear back log of birds outside factory)
• can succumb to hyperthermia if left sitting - may need trucks to drive around

Question 10

Which birds are at ^ risk broken bones ?

Answer 10

• hens (cf. Broilers)

- osteoporosis d/t age, calcium in diet, light intensity and changes -> trauma

Question 11

Is leather profitable?

Answer 11

• more profitable than meat!

> most skilled knife person on skinning line not slaughter (bad for welfare!)

Question 12

What is metabolic exhaustion?

Answer 12

- lactic acid build up v pH -> 
> darker meat (dark firm dry, dark cut of beef)
- if pH drops at a slower rate 
- indicates stress before slaughter (dehydration, over stocking, long transport etc.) 
- glycogen stores used up 
> pale soft exudative 
- stress at slaughter 
- rapid decline in pH 
- common pigs

Question 13

How can you avoid high pH meat?

Answer 13

• minimise stress
• allow recovery muscle glycogen
• improve glycogen storage (not used much)

Question 14

effects of dehydration - welfare and meat

Answer 14

• thirst, headache
• difficult skin removal
• sticky meat
• darker, tougher meat
• smaller loin muscle area (shrinkage)

Question 15

Most common live export from uk?

Answer 15

• DIC layers (within 48hrs, still surviving on energy from yolk so no need to feed - problems when delayed flights have to be slaughetered as cannot return into country)
• Heathrow -> all round world

Question 16

Transport of animals by sea

Answer 16

> Australia
- legislation now changed,responsibility of welfare of animals now on exporters shoulders
(-> Indonesia, animal abuse)

Question 17

Where is deer farming common

Answer 17

• New Zealand

- from live capture of wild stock (so still quite wild and not domesticated!)

Question 18

What occours with port refusals?

Answer 18

• eg. Tampa bay

- dispatched on board and thrown overboard

Question 19

Average mortality rates

Answer 19

• lambs 0.02%
• pigs 0.07%
• Broilers 0.25% (68 million birds slaughtered a year)