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Swine pre-slaughter management
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Introduction Heat stress (HS) is a major environmental hazard for both humans and animals. Heat claims more human lives than all other climatic events combined (Changnon et al. 1996), with the young and elderly populations being the most susceptible (Leon and Helwig 2010). Surprisingly, despite increased understanding on the pathophysiology of heat-related illnesses (Bouchama and Knochel 2002), the only standard procedures to treat heat victims are cooling and rehydration (Leon...
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Introduction Animal vocalisations can contain information such as signalling threats [1], choosing mates [2] or alerting infants for suckling [3]. In case of livestock animals, information contained in vocalisations or other animals sounds could serve as valuable information for the farmer. A very good example is the rich vocal repertoire of pigs [4–6]. For instance, high frequency calls of pigs have already been...
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Introduction Transportation is a necessary part of modern U.S.A. pig production. Over 100 million U.S.A. pigs are transported 2 or 3 times from birth to market (USDA, 2005). Pigs are most often transported at weaning from a farrowing barn to a nursery or wean to finish barn. Those taken to a nursery are transported to a finishing site (5 to 9 weeks later). Finally pigs are transported from the finishing site to the processing plant. For these two...
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1. Introduction This paper summarises some key findings fromrecent research into animal welfare during the preslaughter and slaughter periods. It focuses on injuries and ease of handling, stress effects on subsequent meat quality, and contemporary problems in stunning and slaughter. 2. Recent trends in preslaughter management ...
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Introduction Traditionally, pig production in Spain has been based on crossing Landrace × Large White dams with lean sire lines, such as Pietrain and then slaughtering gilts and intact males at approximately 100 kg. Yet, over the past 15 yr, the trend has been to increase slaughter weight (SW) to reduce costs and improve marbling (Barton-Gade, 1987; Wood, 1993) and sensory characteristics of...
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Introduction Slaughter weights (SLW) for swine in the United States have been increasing steadily over recent years and currently average approximately 112 kg for slaughter barrows and gilts (Morgan et al., 1994). The potential advantages of producing heavier pigs are widely recognized by the slaughter/processing industry, and this sector would like to increase slaughter weights above...
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INTRODUCTION Dead and nonambulatory pigs at the processing plant are a multifactorial problem that can be influenced by pig, facility design, people, management, transportation, processing plant, and environmental factors (Anderson et al., 2002; Ellis et al., 2003; Ellis and Ritter, 2005a), and these losses represent multiple challenges for the entire US food chain....
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Introduction
Improvest® (Pfizer Animal Health) is approved in a number of countries for immunological castration of male pigs. There is an increasing amount of research evaluating the growth performance and carcass characteristics of immunologically- compared to physically-castrated male pigs. However, there has been little if any research comparing the responses of these two genders during pre-harvest handling and...
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INTRODUCTION The projected increase in water demand by the world's livestock for the year 2025 is 71% and much of this will occur in developing countries (Bruinsmaa, 2003, Delgado et al. 1999). The relation between water and pig production is an issue that must be addressed immediately and in a systemic approach. Pig production is a constant threat to quantity and quality of water sources. Palhares & Calijuri...
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At all times prior to slaughter pigs may experience stress from a range of handling practices, such as fasting, loading and transport, mixing and interaction with humans. Preslaughter stress is both an animal welfare and a meat quality issue. On one hand, behavioural and physiological studies revealed that poor handling practices at the farm, during transport and at the slaughter plant are aversive to pigs and may result in loss of profits due to animal...
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Loading and unloading pigs for transport is stressful, since this may be a novel situation for the pig (Grandin 1997). Pigs have evolved to treat novel situations as dangerous (Grandin 1997). Their reaction will also be influenced by previous experience and genetics (Grandin 1997). If pigs have not been exposed to regular human contact, attempts to load them will be met with resistance. The way to overcome this, is to gradually introduce pigs to the idea of being loaded and unloaded through...
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The purpose of the study was to understand the factors associated with in-transit losses in finisher pigs in Ontario. It looked at transport losses in finisher pigs between the time they leave the farm to the time they are stunned at the abattoir. In this study, in-transit loss refers to death loss only and did not include those pigs that were fatigued and resulted in lower carcass quality.
Records from Ontario Pork, abattoirs and environmental temperature and humidity were collected...
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When handled through the same facilities, pigs from large and small groups required similar levels of force during handling. However, pigs from large groups tended to load more quickly. Pigs from the two treatments had similar physiological responses to handling. When given adequate lairage time to recover from handling and transportation, meat quality was similar between group size treatments.
Introduction
We have...
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One of the biggest pork quality problems is pale, soft, exudative (PSE) pork. Physiologically the quality of the meat is dependent upon its ultimate pH, which is determined by conversion of glycogen to lactic acid within the meat (Berg, 2001). A pig's genetic makeup plays a role in the incidence of PSE pork, but the amount and type of stress placed on the pig prior to slaughter is the main factor. Loading and unloading, transporting, mixing of pigs, and slaughterhouse practices are all...
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Death losses during transportation in Canada may be low (0.10%), but the total loss amounts to approximately 16,000 pigs per year. In addition, other pigs arrive at the processing plant as 'suspect' animals due to fatigue, and may need to be euthanized at the plant. We know that the rate of loss is higher during the summer months, and it differs with farm of origin, and transporters. It is generally acknowledged that some compartments on trucks are worse than others in terms of death losses,...
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A study conducted in 2001 in Ontario found that of 4,760,213 market weight pigs shipped to packing plants, 7969 died prior to being processed at the plant. Of those that died, 15% were classified as “subject” pigs when they were loaded into the truck. 1 A subject pig is one that appears abnormal for any of a variety of reasons. Pigs shipped in the summer months were twice as likely to die in-transit compared to pigs shipped during other months of the year. The...
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When pigs are transported over long distances, we do not know very much about their behaviour and welfare. Scientists from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Aarhus intend to rectify that. When pigs are transported over very long distances we do not know very much about how they fare and how they spend their time while in the truck. We also do not know if it is better for them to spend the obligatory breaks in the truck, as compared to being unloaded at a staging...
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The slaughterhouse’s holding pen – known also as lairage – is the end of the line for hogs on their way through the food chain. It can also be the beginning of the line for the spread of pathogenic Salmonella if processors don’t take note of whether incoming hogs are bringing the bacteria with them or developing it at the lairage. The key is finding out early enough in the process at the lairage. That has led Food Safety Consortium researchers at Iowa State University to look for a way...
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Producers make daily management decisions for the best practice of their property and the welfare of their pigs. However, these decisions are now being viewed under tighter scrutiny due to the introduction of PigPass. For some producers there are several grey areas which surround the Withholding Periods (WHP’s) and Export Slaughter Intervals (ESI’s).
PigPass is concerned with the animal husbandry of pigs and includes some information and questions around the WHP’s and ESI’s for commonly used...
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The Farm Animal Council of Saskatchewan Inc. (FACS) together with the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board is pleased to the “Award of Distinction for Hog Transportation Handling.”
Quality animal care and welfare are priorities for the livestock industry. Consumers and retailers demand assurance that the food they purchase and consume has been raised in a humane manner. Every step in the production process is critical for the pork industry to continue to provide nutritious, high quality pork...
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