Profit was defined as a function of the genotype of animals and variables controlled by management. Alternative parameterizations of management variables were examined to compare the effect of controlling age at slaughter, weight at slaughter, or fat depth at slaughter. The various parameterizations are shown to result in equivalent economic weights for genetic variables, provided management va...

The plasmatic cortisol levels of 60 eight-month-old calves (Charolais breed) were measured as stress indicators resulting from two types of slaughter: traditional and religious rite. The plasmatic cortisol levels were evaluated during three different stages of their productive life: during growth, after transport and during slaughter. The thirty calves slaughtered after stunning showed plasmati...

A pig changes over time: it puts on weight and eats more, as it becomes larger. Different pigs grow in a different manner. There is evidence that these differences in growth patterns between pigs are caused by genetic factors. This gives the opportunity to select for these different growth patterns, to better meet the demands of markets that differ in desired slaughter weight, eg Bacon, fresh p...

Organic steer production demand several decisions concerning grazing strategy, feeding level in the winter and factors as slaughter weight and length of the fattening period. The production can be difficult to optimise, therefore the objective of this study was to describe a model developed to optimise the fattening and slaughter strategy of steer production concerning economy at an individual ...

The examination of lung lesions on fattening pigs at slaughter is a useful tool for estimating the importance of respiratory diseases in a farm. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between prevalence and extent of lung lesions at slaughter and the previous pig growth during the fattening period. Data were collected on near of 7000 pigs from 14 French farms, individually ident...

The eating quality of meat is a function of the animal production and carcase processing that has been applied. While live animal factors (animal age, nutrition, breed, pre-slaughter stress) often have a marked effect on beef eating quality, in many cases the treatment of the carcase on the slaughter floor and in the chiller can have a far greater effect. This update, which follows on from Meat...

The Government recently announced that it intends to reject a recommendation by the Farm Animal Welfare Council that all animals should be stunned before slaughter (see VR, April 10, p 446). In this Viewpoint article, Dr Stuart Rosen discusses physiological aspects of Shechita, the Jewish method of religious animal slaughter. He outlines the religious context and describes the act of Shechita. ...

Model based decision support for optimizing the decision complex stemming from a slaughter pig production exposed to infectious disease requires careful analysis of the individual components and their modeling. Due to limitations imposed by existing methods and computational considerations the resulting model will be a tradeoff between modeling the conceptual aspects and the possibilities withi...