Abstract
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the welfare of farm animals, especially during transportation. The Canadian transport regulations state that weaned cattle require an 8 h rest after 36 h of transport. There are, however, only a few studies that assess the effect of rest on the welfare of beef cattle. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of conditioning, source and rest on indicators of welfare in 7-8-month-old beef calves during long-distance transport. Treatments consisted of a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design where the main factors were conditioning: conditioned (C; n = 160) or non-conditioned (N; n = 160); source: auction market (A; n = 160) or ranch direct (R; n = 160); and rest: 0 h (0 h; n = 160) or 8 h (8 h; n = 160). Means of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), serum amyloid-A, haptoglobin, creatine kinase (CK), and percentage of time standing from N calves were greater than C calves (all p ≤ 0.05). Means of percentage of time standing and CK of R calves were greater than A calves (both p ≤ 0.05). The mean of NEFA of 0 h calves was greater than the 8 h calves (p < 0.01), while the percentage of time standing of 0 h calves was less than 8 h calves (p < 0.01). Statistically significant differences between means of NEFA and standing percentage, were observed between 0 h and 8h calves. Few and inconsistent indicators of reduced welfare were observed between auction market and ranch direct calves, while non-conditioning was associated with greater physiological and behavioural indicators of reduced welfare. Based on these results, conditioning should be implemented as a management practice to improve the welfare of transported calves.
Highlights
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the welfare of farm animals being raised for food consumption [1]
No differences were observed for feed intake at hours 4, 6, 7, and 8 the C-8h calves μ = 1.4, 1.4, 1.8, 2.0 kg/h (u = 2.22, 1 = 1.20) were characterized by numerically greater feed intake than N-8h calves μ = 0.8, 0.8, 1.3, 1.4 kg/h (u = 1.45, 1 = 0.76). These results indicate that N calves were eating during the rest stop, the amount of feed consumed was lower than in C calves, possibly due to a lack of feed and feed bunk adaptation
On d 1 and 2, N-8h calves were characterized by greater (p < 0.01) mean creatine kinase (CK) concentrations than C-8h calves. These results suggest that N calves had Conditioning, source, and rest stop greater muscle fatigue than C calves, and that differences were observed for a longer period of time in N-0h compared to N-8h calves, likely due to recovery of the 8h calves during the rest period
Summary
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the welfare of farm animals being raised for food consumption [1]. A study assessing the perception of consumers through focus groups and interviews reported that transport is of particular concern to consumers, even more than painful husbandry procedures, due to the high visibility of livestock transportation in urban areas [2]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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