Season, Transport Duration and Trailer Compartment Effects on Blood Stress Indicators in Pigs: Relationship to Environmental, Behavioral and Other Physiological Factors, and Pork Quality Traits

Sommavilla, Roberta; Faucitano, Luigi; Gonyou, Harold; Seddon, Yolande; Bergeron, Renée; Widowski, Tina; Crowe, Trever; Connor, Laurie; Scheeren, Marina Bergoli; Goumon, Sébastien; Brown, Jennifer

doi:10.3390/ani7020008

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Addendum published on 24 February 2017, see Animals 2017, 7(3), 13.

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Season, Transport Duration and Trailer Compartment Effects on Blood Stress Indicators in Pigs: Relationship to Environmental, Behavioral and Other Physiological Factors, and Pork Quality Traits

^1,†,‡,

^1,†,

²,

²,

³,

³,

⁴,

⁵,

Marina Bergoli Scheeren

^1,§,

Sébastien Goumon

⁶ and

Jennifer Brown

^2,*

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Sherbrooke Research and Development Centre, Sherbrooke, QC J1M 0C8, Canada

Prairie Swine Centre, Saskatoon, SK S7H 5N9, Canada

Department of Animal Biosciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada

⁴

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A2, Canada

⁵

Department of Animal Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada

⁶

Department of Ethology, Institute of Animal Science, Pratelstvi 815, 104 00 Prague-Uhrineves, Czech Republic

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

^†

These authors contributed equally.

^‡

Present address: Laboratory of Animal Welfare, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba 80.210-150, Brazil.

^§

Present address: 704-689, Rua Sete de Setembro, Ijuí 98.700-000, Brazil.

Academic Editors: John J. McGlone and Anna K. Johnson

Animals 2017, 7(2), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7020008

Received: 3 November 2016 / Revised: 31 January 2017 / Accepted: 1 February 2017 / Published: 8 February 2017

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pig Transport 2016)

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Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess the effects of the season, travel duration and trailer compartment location on blood creatine-kinase (CK), lactate and cortisol concentrations in 384 pigs and assess their relationships with trailer temperature, heart rate and gastrointestinal tract temperature (GTT), behavior, carcass damage scores and meat quality. Blood CK was greater in pigs transported in summer (p = 0.02), after 18 h transportation (p < 0.001) and in pigs located in C4, C5 and C10 (p = 0.002). In winter, the concentration of blood lactate was higher (p = 0.04) in pigs transported for 6 h in C5. Pigs located in C10 showed higher (p = 0.01) concentration of cortisol than those transported for 18h in C4 in summer. The highest correlations were between blood cortisol and GTT (r = 0.53; p < 0.001), and between blood CK and GTT (r = 0.41; p < 0.001), truck temperature (r = 0.42; p < 0.001), and pH_u in the longissimus muscle (r = 0.41; p < 0.001). In conclusion, although increased blood cortisol and CK levels appear to indicate a physical stress condition in transported pigs, the weak to moderate correlations with environmental and other animal welfare indicators suggest that blood stress parameters can only be used as a complementary measurement in the assessment of the pigs’ response to transport stress. View Full-Text

Keywords: behavior; blood parameters; body temperature; heart rate; meat quality; pigs; season; stress response; transport time

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Sommavilla, R.; Faucitano, L.; Gonyou, H.; Seddon, Y.; Bergeron, R.; Widowski, T.; Crowe, T.; Connor, L.; Scheeren, M.B.; Goumon, S.; Brown, J. Season, Transport Duration and Trailer Compartment Effects on Blood Stress Indicators in Pigs: Relationship to Environmental, Behavioral and Other Physiological Factors, and Pork Quality Traits. Animals 2017, 7, 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7020008

AMA Style

Sommavilla R, Faucitano L, Gonyou H, Seddon Y, Bergeron R, Widowski T, Crowe T, Connor L, Scheeren MB, Goumon S, Brown J. Season, Transport Duration and Trailer Compartment Effects on Blood Stress Indicators in Pigs: Relationship to Environmental, Behavioral and Other Physiological Factors, and Pork Quality Traits. Animals. 2017; 7(2):8. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7020008

Chicago/Turabian Style

Sommavilla, Roberta, Luigi Faucitano, Harold Gonyou, Yolande Seddon, Renée Bergeron, Tina Widowski, Trever Crowe, Laurie Connor, Marina B. Scheeren, Sébastien Goumon, and Jennifer Brown. 2017. "Season, Transport Duration and Trailer Compartment Effects on Blood Stress Indicators in Pigs: Relationship to Environmental, Behavioral and Other Physiological Factors, and Pork Quality Traits" Animals 7, no. 2: 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7020008

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Season, Transport Duration and Trailer Compartment Effects on Blood Stress Indicators in Pigs: Relationship to Environmental, Behavioral and Other Physiological Factors, and Pork Quality Traits

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