Search Results (7)

This five-month epidemiological investigation evaluated pre-slaughter welfare, carcass-processing practices, and post-mortem lesion prevalence in 1012 cattle and 413 pigs slaughtered in Enugu State, Nigeria. Direct observations and post-mortem inspections were conducted following OIE standards. Animal welfare was markedly compromised. Cattle were dragged from the lairage to kill floor, restrained in lateral recumbency for over 30 min before bleeding, and slaughtered without stunning. Pigs were transported tied to motorcycles and processed on unsanitary floors. The lairages lacked roofing, clean water, and adequate drainage. Carcass handling was unhygienic, with meat processed near maggot-infested drains and transported in open vans or motorized tricycles used to commute passengers and cement. Of all cattle examined, 45.3% (458/1012) exhibited gross lesions attributable to contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP, 15.5%), fasciolosis (18%), liver abscessation (6.6%), ascariasis (4.6%), and bovine tuberculosis (0.5%). No lesions were detected in pigs. Lesion occurrence differed significantly (p < 0.05) by sex (males = 44.1%, females = 66.7%), age (<4 years = 54.1%, ≥4 years = 45.4%), breed (White Fulani = 45.5%, others = 36.7%), slaughterhouse location, and season (rainy = 45.2%, dry = 45.5%). Temporal analysis showed the highest lesion rate in April (68.3%), declining to 37.7% in May. Lesions of CBPP and fasciolosis were significantly more frequent in young cattle and during the rainy months (p < 0.05). These findings reveal systemic welfare violations and disease endemicity within the municipal abattoirs surveyed. The combination of poor pre-slaughter welfare, unhygienic meat handling, and high prevalence of zoonotic and economically important livestock disease lesions highlights urgent public health concerns. Strengthening abattoir infrastructure, enforcing pre-slaughter animal welfare and hygiene regulations, mechanizing slaughter processes, and instituting continuous surveillance within the One Health framework are essential for ensuring meat safety and public health security in Nigeria and beyond. Full article

This review explores strategies to enhance meat quality in poultry, focusing on both management and genetic methods. Poultry meat quality is influenced by many factors, including rearing conditions, nutrition, animal welfare, and post-slaughter processing. Key management factors such as stocking density, ventilation, temperature, and humidity are emphasized for their significant impact on bird welfare and the resulting meat texture, color, and microbial stability. Welfare-enhancing practices like gentle handling, environmental enrichment, and thermal comfort are highlighted for their direct effects on stress levels and meat properties such as water-holding capacity and pH. Innovations in slaughtering and chilling techniques, including electrical and gas stunning and rapid chilling, are shown to preserve meat quality and prevent common defects like pale, soft, and exudative (PSE) or dark, firm, and dry (DFD) meat. The review also underscores the importance of hygiene protocols, hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) systems, and traceability technologies to ensure food safety and foster consumer trust. On the genetic front, it discusses conventional selection, marker-assisted selection (MAS), and genomic selection (GS) as tools for breeding birds with better meat quality traits, including tenderness, intramuscular fat, and resistance to conditions like woody breast. Functional genomics and gene editing are identified as the leading edge of future advances. Ultimately, the review advocates for an integrated approach that balances productivity, quality, animal welfare, and sustainability. As consumer expectations increase, the poultry industry must adopt precise, science-based strategies across the entire production process to reliably deliver high-quality meat products. Full article

Stunning of farmed fish prior to slaughter is increasingly recognized as a key animal welfare priority, yet uptake remains limited in the EU aquaculture sector. While the effects of different stunning methods on fish welfare are the subject of significant recent research, the effect on aquaculture businesses remains unclear. Therefore, this study assesses the economic feasibility of implementing electrical stunning for four species where it is not currently routine: carp, trout, seabass, and seabream. Using a granular cost model across 17 country–species–system combinations, and cost data from 2018 to 2020, the impact of introducing in-water and dry electrical stunning systems under various cost pass-through and sensitivity scenarios is evaluated. Results show that while stunning increases the production costs, under realistic assumptions, 16 out of 17 segments remain profitable, with the one unprofitable segment already being unprofitable under business-as-usual conditions. Three trout systems even experience cost savings due to reduced labor requirements. Sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of these findings across plausible increases in operating costs and financing assumptions. Even under a 0% cost pass-through, 16 segments still remain profitable. These results provide timely, policy-relevant evidence to support species-specific welfare legislation, while identifying segments that may require targeted support for compliance. Full article

In our experiment, the effect of electrical and CO₂ stunning on pork meat quality attributes was studied. A total of thirty PIC337 female pigs were allocated to two equal groups which were stunned electrically (50 Hz, 210 V, 2.6 A, 15 s) or by CO₂ (85 V% CO₂, 15 V% O₂, 90 s) and slaughtered at a commercial slaughterhouse. For 24 h post mortem, the carcass m. gluteus medius (GM) was used to evaluate meat quality attributes such as pH, color, hardness, water holding capacity (WHC), and total pigment content, and meat classification was also carried out. The CO₂ stunning resulted in muscle with significantly lower pH (p < 0.01) and poorer water holding capacity (p < 0.05) compared to electrical stunning. The GM of pigs stunned electrically showed significantly increased lightness (L*) and redness (a*) (p < 0.05) compared to CO₂-stunned. The time course of development of rigor mortis was similar for both stunning methods. Pale, soft, exudative (PSE) or dark, firm, dry (DFD) meat defects were not observed. Based on total pigment content, stunning methods did not significantly affect the amount of removable blood. Full article

The aim of this study was to assess and validate, using independent data, the prediction equations obtained to estimate in vivo carcass composition using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to determine the nutrient retention and overall energy and nitrogen retention efficiencies of growing rabbits. Seventy-five rabbits grouped into five different ages (25, 35, 49, 63 and 77 days) were used in the study. A four-terminal body-composition analyzer was applied to obtain resistance (Rs, Ω) and reactance (Xc, Ω) values. All the animals were stunned and bled at each selected age, and the chilled carcasses were analyzed to determine water, fat, crude protein (CP), ash and gross energy (GE). Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to determine the equations, using body weight, length and impedance data as independent variables. The coefficients of determination (R²) to estimate the content of water, protein, fat and ash in grams, and energy in Mega Jules(MJ), were: 0.99, 0.99, 0.95, 0.96 and 0.98, respectively, and the relative mean prediction errors (RMPE) were: 4.20, 5.48, 21.9, 9.10 and 6.77%, respectively. Carcass yield (%) estimation had values of 0.50 and 10.0 for R² and RMPE, respectively. When water content was expressed as a percentage, the R² and RMPE were 0.79 and 1.62%, respectively. When the protein, fat and ash were expressed as a percentage of dry matter (%DM) and the energy content as kJ/100 g DM, the R² values were 0.68, 0.76, 0.66 and 0.82, respectively, and the RMPEs were 3.22, 10.5, 5.82 and 2.54%, respectively. Energy Retention Efficiency was 20.4 ± 7.29%, 21.0 ± 4.18% and 20.8 ± 2.79% from 35 to 49, from 49 to 63 and from 35 to 63 d, respectively. Nitrogen Retention Efficiency was 46.9 ± 11.7%, 34.5 ± 7.32% and 39.1 ± 3.23% for the same periods. Energy was retained in body tissues for growth with an efficiency of approximately 52.5%, and the energy efficiency for protein and fat retention was 33.3 and 69.9%, respectively. This work shows that BIA is a non-invasive and good method to estimate in vivo carcass composition and to determine the nutrient retention of growing rabbits from 25 to 77 days of age. Full article

The phenomenon of overcompensation has been reported in various plant species although it has been treated by some as isolated incidents with only limited values. Reviewing reports on the extensive studies of defoliation in maize showed that different genotypes respond differently to defoliation, varying from phenomenal increase to significant loss in grain yield. The different responses of maize in kernel yield among genotypes to defoliation are confirmed in our experiments conducted in both China and Australia. Defoliated plants are likely to use less water during vegetative growth and that they also have better ability to extract water from the soil. We also found that defoliation dramatically delayed plant senescence under dry conditions, facilitating the production of high quality silage by widening the harvest window. As overcompensation occurs only in some genotypes, we believe that exploiting defoliation as a management practice directly for crop production can be risky. However, the fact that significant yield increase following defoliation does occur and that large genetic variation does exist meet the requirements for a successful breeding program. The detection of sizable quantitative trait locus (QTL) in the model plant species provides further evidence indicating the feasibility of exploiting this phenomenon through breeding. The stunning magnitudes of desirable responses reported in the literature suggest that overcompensation could become the most valuable breeding target in at least some species and its impact on crop production could be huge even if only a proportion of the reported variations could be captured. Full article

As medical cyclotrons are becoming more abundant, ¹²³I and ¹²⁴I are getting more attention as alternatives to ¹³¹I for diagnostics of thyroid disease. Both ¹²³I and ¹²⁴I provide better diagnostics, deliver less dose to patients and both reduce the risk of thyroid stunning, facilitating subsequent therapy. Dry distillation of radioiodine from tellurium dioxide targets has become the standard approach to producing these radioiodines. Setting up such a production of radioiodine is associated with a lengthy optimization of the process and for this purpose natural tellurium is often used for economical reasons. In this paper, the distillation parameters are scrutinized to ensure optimal distillation temperature, in order to minimize time spent and prevent loss of expensive target material. It is further demonstrated how the individual iodine isotopes, produced from proton bombardment of ^natTe, will diffuse out of the target in a time dependent ratio. We believe the effect is due to the isotopes having their maximum cross section at different energies. The individual isotopes produced will thus have their highest concentration at different depths in the target. This results in individual mean diffusion lengths and diffusion times for the different isotopes. Full article