Bienestar animal y su relación con la calidad de carne en bovinos faenados en la Empresa Pública EMURPLAG

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate pre and post-mortem animal welfare in cattle and determine at what stage of the slaughter process there are management failures that may later affect the quality of the meat. This research was carried out in the EMURPLAG slaughter plant, where 1320 cattle of different provenance were selected, in which twelve animal welfare indicators were studied, these parameters were a combination between the Welfare Quality method and the Institute of Meats created by Grandin (2011). In addition to these parameters, the pH in the semimembranosus muscle was determined in the channels at 45 minutes and 24 hours after slaughter; It is worth mentioning that of the 1320 animals, only 818 animals were able to take the pH at 24 hours after slaughter since not all the carcasses were left in the cold room for the correct maturation of the meat. An analysis of variance showed that the final pH (24 hours) of the carcasses is influenced by the health status of the animals, the type of harness, the presence of corneal reflex and the number of shots that are used to desensitize the animals. Therefore, it is concluded that there were serious problems in the indicators of animal welfare that subsequently affected the quality of the meat, since a high relation was found between some critical management points in relation to the high pH of the meat