Farm to abattoir conditions, animal factors and their subsequent effects on cattle behavioural responses and beef quality — A review

Abstract

The current review seeks to highlight the concerns that have been raised on pre-slaughter stress, contributing factors and its consequent effects on cattle behavioural responses and the quality of beef; inter-linking the activities involved from birth to slaughter. Such information is crucial in light of the consumer concerns on overall animal welfare, quality of meat and food security. Slaughter animals are exposed to different conditions during production and transportation to abattoirs on a daily basis. However; the majority of studies that have been done previously singled out different environments in the meat production chain, while conclusions have been made that the welfare of slaughter animals and the quality of meat harvested from them is dependent on the whole chain. Behaviour is a critical component used to evaluate the animals’ wellbeing and it has been reported to have an effect on product quality. Apart from the influence of on-farm, transportation and abattoir conditions, the genetic background of the animal also affects how it perceives and responds to certain encounters. Stress activates the animals’ hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity, triggering release of various stress hormones such as catecholamines and cortisol, thus glycogen depletion prior slaughter, elevated ultimate pH and poor muscle-meat conversion. Pre-slaughter stress sometimes results to cattle attaining bruises, resulting to the affected parts of the carcass being trimmed and condemned for human consumption, downgrading of the carcass and thus profit losses.

An outlook on livestock welfare conditions in African communities — A review

“…Developed countries have placed a high sense of concern for farm AW; it has been a rapidly growing area of interest over the years [15,30,4345]. Regardless of some researchbased recommendations that have been developed towards miti gating these concerns, some people generally perceive animal basedfood consumption as an inhumane act [46].…”

“…While there are international AW standards in the developed world, lead ing to improved management procedures, there are inherent factors that impede adoption of such in most developing re gions, such as Africa. There is a need to acknowledge the geographical, climatic and systematic differences between the developed and developing worlds [15]. Some communities are uncertain about and unfamiliar with the AW concept.…”

“…Chulayo and Muchenje [54] reported that AW is generally associated with producers, retailers and the industry, with no consumer consideration, though it may affect their attitudes towards and purchase decision of certain products. Hence, the current status re garding awareness of AW matters disqualifies the region from import and export participation with the rest of the world, as reflected in a sluggish contribution towards economic growth [14,15,47,55]. There is, therefore, a need for coun teractive action from all stakeholders involved in livestock keeping [17,55].…”

“…The African Union (AU) [13] envisions a future in which agricultural produc tion, productivity and value addition improves, enriching household, national and regional wellbeing and food security. As such, Africa shows great potential for animal agriculture [1,14,15].…”

Pre-slaughter cattle welfare indicators for use in commercial abattoirs with voluntary monitoring systems: A systematic review

“…The way animals are managed and processed outside European and Englishspeaking markets can be markedly different in terms of scale of production, infrastructure, market requirements, the availability of manual labor and technology. As a result, research in those regions is necessary (Doyle et al, 2016;Njisane & Muchenje, 2017).…”