Use of radio telemetry to determine presence of cattle stress indicators before slaughter

Abstract

This study was conducted in order to determine the presence of stress in cattle prior to slaughter in situations such as loading, trans-porting, unloading, water and food deprivation during mobilization and waiting in the corral in overcrowded and inclement condi-tions. Samples were five bovines with ages of 40 months on average, castrated males, from the San Martinero criolla breed, whichwere transported along 144 Km, by land, from the farm located in Acacias, department of Meta, to the ICTA slaughter plant in Bo-gotá. The stress indicators were identified by differences in body temperature, heart rate and respiration frequency (hereinafter-physiological constants), which were monitored for 20 minutes at the time: prior to loading the animals on the farm, and uponarri-val at the slaughterhouse (just after being transported). The bovine cardiac signal was captured and processed through a girth, and was transmitted via a radio telemetry system that was designed and built in the project. The results show data capture at a sample rate of four million samples per second and wireless communication in real time, which meant that no information was lost on thevariations of the bovine heart signal and reception of information from any point of the slaughter plant.