New welfare indicators during animal transport

Campus Moncloa researchers have presented new non-invasive indicators to study the pig welfare during transport what it will mean a better quality of food products.

09/01/2012

Campus Moncloa researchers have presented new non-invasive indicators to study the pig welfare during transport what it will mean a better quality of food products.

The time derivatives in air temperature and humidity appear to be much more sensitive than absolute values of temperature or relative humidity. This is the proposal presented by a joint team of researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and of the Scottish Agricultural College assigned to the Agri-food and Health Cluster of CIE Moncloa.

The live transport of domestic animals is an important link in food supply chain, and it is possibly one of the biggest concerns for consumers who can easily see the live animal transport passing trough villages and cities. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the animal transport to enhance quality and protect human and animal health as well as the product quality.

At first glance, it appears that animal transport is difficult in Spain due to high temperatures for many months a year. In fact, several European Community countries forbid the animal export to Spain when it exceeds 30 degrees. This is a problem that affects the domestic production, but surprisingly it has not been studied in detail before.

Researchers of the Department of Rural Engineering at the School of School of Agricultural Engineering (UPM) and the Scottish Agricultural College have undertaken a research funded by the The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in which live pigs were transported from Scotland to Malaga during the summer months (7 trips in total), a 4 days trip.

During the research(1) they measured temperature and humidity on farm, during transport ( 4 days trip, included a boat trip) and they also measured the temperature at the Antequera abattoir (Fig.1). In addition, the calculated air enthalpy .

The psychrometric charts (Fig.2) for each location (farm, transport and abattoir) showed that the space of enthalpy were similar. However, the temperature time derivative and enthalpy time derivative were up to ten times higher during transport. In conclusion, derivatives of temperature or enthalpy could be used as non-invasive welfare indicators during transport and appear to be much more sensitive than absolute values of temperature or relative humidity.

Post-transport observation of pig behaviour also suggested that journeys with higher temperature or enthalpy time derivatives were more stressed (evaluated as the amount of time they spent resting or drinking).

The results suggest that the derivatives in temperature and enthalpy during transport provide a much more sensitive non-invasive indicator of animal welfare than temperature alone. According to the psychometric charts, temperature or relative humidity values by themselves are not very sensitive indicators of environmental stress.

El Campus CEI Moncloa provee de un marco que potencia la investigación entre grupos de investigación locales, nacionales e internacionales, necesarios para este tipo de investigación interdisciplinar, que aborda temas de ingeniería (transporte, sensores, análisis de datos) junto con la fisiología y el comportamiento animal.

The CIE Moncloa aims to enhance the investigation among local, national and international research groups. They approach engineering issues (transport, sensors and data asses) along with the animal physiology and behavior.



(1)Time derivatives in air temperature and enthalpy as non-invasive welfare indicators during long distance animal transport.
Morris Villarroel; Pilar Barreiro; Peter Kettlewell; Marianne Farish; Malcolm Mitchell. Biosystems Engineering (3) (November 2011) 110, 253-260.

Tag: Agri-Food and Health    Source: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Event date:

09/01/2012