Animal Welfare and Food Safety When Slaughtering Cattle Using the Gunshot Method.

Transporting cattle from farm to slaughterhouse is often stressful for the animal, which can impair the meat quality. With the gunshot method, the animal is stunned with a rifle shot while together with familiar herd members in their home environment, exsanguinated and transported to a nearby slaughterhouse. Aiming to assess the consequences for animal welfare and food safety, 20 Hereford steers aged 18-54 months were shot with .22 Magnum ammunition from an elevated position and distance of 6-12 m. Each time, only one out of four to seven animals in a 16 × 10 m corral was shot. Dressing was done on farm. Based on the animals' behaviour and blood concentrations of cortisol, glucose and lactate, stress levels before shooting were low. Eleven animals were deeply stunned, the consciousness of seven others was ambiguous, and two were poorly stunned. Two animals were reshot. The bleed-out was satisfactory for all animals, and little or no faecal contamination was found on the carcasses. We conclude that the gunshot method is applicable to large beef steers while maintaining a satisfactory level of animal welfare and food safety, provided that the necessary conditions can be attained.

Erratum: Aluwé, M. et al. Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets. Animals 2020, 10, 1758.

The authors wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...].

Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets.

Surgical castration of piglets without pain relief is still common practice in many countries. Possible alternatives for surgical castration are application of pain relief or anaesthesia or production of boars (entire males) and immunocastrates. Each of these alternatives faces advantages and disadvantages which may result in different citizen attitudes and consumers acceptability. Understanding which practice is acceptable to whom and why may further stimulate implementation. Consumer (n = 3251) and stakeholder (n = 1027) attitudes towards surgical castration without pain relief, surgical castration with anaesthesia, immunocastration, and production of boars were surveyed from April to June 2020 via an online questionnaire in 16 countries (>175 respondents per country). Surgical castration without pain relief was separated from each of the alternatives due to animal welfare and showed the lowest acceptability (32%). Within the alternatives, a further partitioning between the alternatives was based on perceived quality and food safety, with an acceptance of 85% for applying anaesthesia, 71% for immunocastration, and 49% for boar production. Differences depending on professional involvement and familiarity with agriculture could be observed, mainly for the acceptance of surgical castration without anaesthesia, immunocastration, and boars. Castration with anaesthesia was highly accepted by all types of respondents.

A comparative study of beef quality after ageing longissimus muscle using a dry ageing bag, traditional dry ageing or vacuum package ageing.

The objective of this study was to investigate beef quality of longissimus muscle after ageing in dry ageing bags, traditional dry ageing or vacuum for 8 or 19 days. Lower ageing weight loss, odour score and microbial growth were found in meat aged in dry ageing bags than after traditional dry ageing. The sensory panel detected no differences for most of the sensory attributes between samples using the two dry ageing methods, except for the odour of the cutting surface. The dry-aged steaks had more umami and butter fried meat taste compared with vacuum-aged steaks. Ageing time affected most of the sensory traits in this study, which improved as ageing time increased from 8 to 19 days. In a consumer test, meat aged for 21 days in dry ageing bags was preferred than the samples aged in vacuum. This may be due to the higher tenderness and juiciness obtained during storage in dry ageing bags than meat aged in vacuum.

Meat quality, microbiological status and consumer preference of beef gluteus medius aged in a dry ageing bag or vacuum.

This study investigated meat quality and consumer preference after ageing beef gluteus medius in a water vapour-permeable dry-ageing bag or in vacuum for 14 days. Higher ageing and trim losses but lower thawing loss, cooking loss and water content were found in samples aged in dry ageing bags compared to those aged in vacuum. Samples aged in dry ageing bags had higher total bacteria and yeast counts but lower lactic acid bacteria counts than those aged in vacuum, both before and after trimming. Meat aged in dry ageing bag was more tender and juicier and overall preferred by consumers compared with samples aged in vacuum. Female participants outperformed the males in detecting differences in palatability. No differences were found in pH, smell, shear force, colour, Enterobacteriaceae, and mould counts. Thus, by using a dry ageing bag, it is possible to produce dry-aged meat in a more controlled condition without negative effects on sensory or other quality attributes.