| The loading and unloading of cattle for road transport is stressful but thestress is difficult to evaluate in terms of the welfare of the cattle. Over one year, 40 normalcommercial journeys in northern Spain were analysed in terms of time limits andbehavioural events inorder to design an objective method for assessing the stresses imposed on the animals, and ascoring method was developed for assessing the welfare of the animals during loading and unloading.Several definitions of time intervalswere assessed to calculate a time score per animal, and easilyobservable behavioural events were scored and combined with the time score to obtain a totalloading/unloading score. More than half of the loadings and unloadings involved turns, slips andvocalisations. Mounts and bouts of fighting were infrequent and balks and falls were significantlymore frequent during loading than unloading. The plasma concentrations of cortisol, glucose andlactate, the activity of creatine kinase and the pH of the meat 24 hours after the animals wereslaughtered were also measured. The results indicated that loading was more stressful than unloadingand that higher scores implied significantly higher levels of stress. |
