Relationship between beef carcass quality and welfare during rearing, transportation and slaughter in Lithuanian cattle farms
Integrated animal welfare assessment systems, such as the Welfare Quality® assessment system and the Animal Needs Index (ANI), based on systematic data collection and analysis, provide a more structured and comprehensive approach than the conventional methods currently used in Lithuanian cattle farms. The objective of this study was to determine the correlations between cattle welfare during rearing, transport, and the pre-slaughter period – evaluated using the Welfare Quality and ANI systems – and carcass quality. Four beef cattle farms (346 cattle) were monitored using these welfare systems in order to identify and eliminate factors negatively affecting animal welfare during rearing, transport, and before slaughter. Limousin cattle were the most sensitive to stress, Charolais cattle were sensitive to a lesser extent, while Aubrac and Highland cattle were the most resistant. The potential for meat maturation depended on carcass conformation class and the pH decline during the first 48 hours postmortem. Only Charolais carcasses were classified as EUROP conformation class U, whereas Limousin and Highland carcasses were classified as R and O classes, respectively. Under appropriate welfare conditions, short transport and acute pre-slaughter stress had no statistically significant effect on beef carcass quality or meat quality parameters.