Manejo pré-abate e bem-estar de ovinos mestiços no estado do Ceará

Abstract

The pre-slaughter handling is a crucial step in the animals production and can be considered as one stage that presents most of the loss, which is certainly the result of decreased quality of the final product and undertakes conditions of animal welfare. Thus, this study aimed to monitor the whole of pre-slaughter operations, as well as evaluating the influence they exert on the welfare of crossbred sheep produced in the state of Ceará. For this, two transports were followed, 50 crossbred wethers (Santa Inês and Morada Nova), with six months of age, where a representative sample of 20 animals was selected. During the pre-slaughter operations (loading, transport and unloading), environmental parameters were evaluated temperature (Ta) and relative humidity (RH), physiological: heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), rectal temperature (Tr) and surface (Ts) and biochemistry: cortisol (COR), creatine phosphokinase (CPK) and glucose (GLU). It was observed that Ta has increase over the pre-slaughter and landing phases was above the thermal comfort area (33.2°C ± 0.29). The UR was higher at boarding step (83.9% ± 0.92) and decreased according to Ta increase. The Tr and Fr decrease during transport (39.9ºC and 37.8 mov.min¯¹) and returned to raise at the landing phase (40.2ºC and 63.3 mov.min¯¹). The Fc increased during the corresponding transport (123beat.min¯¹ ± 2.67) and decreased in landing (110.9 beat.min¯¹ ± 2.89). The mean values of Ts increased over the pre-slaughter stages, reaching 36.8°C ± 0.10 in the landing phase. For the biochemical parameters was observed that plasma levels of COR and GLI increased during transport (2.1mg/dL ± 0.14 and 102mg/dL ± 5.91) and decreased at the landing (1μg/dL ± 0.14 and 67.7 mg/dL ± 6.65). CPK increased their concentration throughout the stages reached 281.9 U/L ± 7.08 at landing. Therefore, the pre-slaughter stages negatively influenced the animal welfare, especially after transport, which can be considered the most stressful step for the lambs.