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

Hernan Paz-Penagos

doi:10.15446/rev.colomb.biote.v21n1.70294

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.

Highlights

The welfare of a society depends on the quantity and quality of the meat consumed by its members (Joo, et al, 2013)
The design of the radio telemetry system comprising the steps shown in figure 1, is intended to monitor the cardiac signal in a non-intrusive manner; which is implemented on a strap with a suction cup placed around the chest of the cattle, after shave of the area limited by a short fixation period
There were found that physiological constants of some cattle to be outside the ranges considered normal by the authors: temperature according to Battaglia (1989); heart rate, respiratory rate and pulse according to Ávila, et al (2008)

Summary

Introduction

The welfare of a society depends on the quantity and quality of the meat consumed by its members (Joo, et al, 2013). The hypothesis of the study was: "One might think that a high sampling rate in the conversion of an analog signal into digital data and wireless transmission could benefit the reception of a bovine heart signal reliably and from anywhere". In this perspective, the research consisted of designing and constructing a radio telemetry system that allows non-intrusive monitoring of the heart rhythm of the cattle to determine the presence of physiological indicators of stress before slaughter. The study aimed to validate a radio telemetry equipment, which measures physiological constants, one of the many indicators of stress (Stockman, et al, 2011); in addition, could be used to monitor the health of horses or other animal species

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion