Abstract
This study assessed the effects of transportation and lairage time and their interaction on welfare, carcass and meat quality traits in slaughter pigs under commercial conditions. The study was conducted on 120 pigs with a live weight of approximately 115 kg and about six months old. A complete blood picture was measured in pigs to assess pre-slaughter stress. Also, nine different carcass quality parameters including live weight, hot and cold carcass weights, cooling loss, dressing percentage, backfat thickness, meatiness and skin lesions score were measured. The pH and temperature measurements were performed 45 minutes post-mortem. The results showed that short transportation time and slaughtering without lairaging and long transportation time and overnight lairaging negatively influenced the hematological parameters, which meant that the animal welfare was seriously compromised under these pre-slaughter conditions. Long transportation time and overnight lairaging reduced live and carcass weights and increased the incidence of skin lesions on the carcass and DFD pork. In addition, short transportation time and slaughtering without lairaging caused a significant deterioration in pork quality. It can be concluded that, from the standpoint of animal welfare, carcass and meat quality, the above-mentioned pre-slaughter conditions are not recommended to the farmers and/or pork producers.
Highlights
Pre-slaughter treatment is the major research topic in animal science since it is closely connected to animal welfare, as well as carcass and meat quality
The results showed that short transportation time and slaughtering without lairaging and long transportation time and overnight lairaging negatively influenced the hematological parameters, which meant that the animal welfare was seriously compromised under these pre-slaughter conditions
Pigs subjected to short transportation and slaughtered without rest had the highest red blood cell count and hemoglobin concentration (P
Summary
Pre-slaughter treatment is the major research topic in animal science since it is closely connected to animal welfare, as well as carcass and meat quality. On the day of slaughter, several practices have considerable effects on pig welfare and subsequently on carcass and pork quality, such as feeding, slaughter weight, gender, handling during loading or unloading, mixing pigs from different pens, stocking density and time of transportation and lairaging, feed and water withdrawal and the season of slaughter [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Research findings showed that transportation and lairage time are the two key factors of all pre-slaughter practices that can adversely affect the animal welfare, carcass and pork quality [7,8,9,10,11].
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