Behavioral, physiological, and hormonal responses during pre-slaughter handling in goats: A comparison between trained and untrained handlers.

Objective: The livestock handler attitude and their handling of animals is crucial for improving animal welfare standards, minimizing stress, improving productivity and meat quality. The present study was undertaken to assess the effect of training livestock handlers on behavioral, physiological, and hormonal responses during preslaughter handling in goats. Methods: A total of 6 handlers were divided into trained (trained in basic animal handling practices, animal behavior, and animal welfare), contact trained (not trained directly but interacted and saw the working of trained handlers), and untrained groups (no formal training). The handling experiment was conducted on 18 male goats by following a cross-over design. The goats were moved from lairage to slaughter point by trained, contact-trained, and untrained handlers. Various behavioral, physiological, and hormonal parameters were recorded at the lairage before handling and at the slaughter point after handling the goats. Results: The training of livestock handlers had a significant effect on behavioral, physiological, and hormonal responses in goats. The goats handled by untrained and contact-trained handlers were recorded with intense vocalization, significant (p<0.05) increase in heart rate and blood glucose, and catecholamines (adrenaline and nor-adrenaline), thereby indicating stress and poor animal welfare. The trained handlers were observed to use visual interactions (waving of hands or objects, blocking, hand raising, etc), and lower stress responses were recorded in the goats handled by this group. Conclusion: The present study highlights the importance of training to livestock handlers in improving animal welfare and minimizing stress in goats during preslaughter stress.

Importance of Knife Sharpness during Slaughter: Shariah and Kosher Perspective and Scientific Validation.

Halal and kosher slaughter have given the utmost importance to the sharpness of knives during the slaughter of animals. A sharp knife of appropriate dimension (blade length) makes slaughter less painful during neck severance and facilitates desirable bleeding. The role of knife sharpness has not been given due credit from an animal welfare perspective and is likely ignored by the people involved in slaughterhouses. A neat, clean, and efficient neck cut by an extremely sharp knife reduces the pain. It improves the bleeding out, thus making animals unconscious early without undergoing unnecessary pain and stress. It also helps in improving meat quality and food safety. A slight incremental improvement in knife sharpness could significantly improve the animal welfare, productivity, efficiency, and safety of meat plant workers. The present review critically analyzed the significance of knife sharpness in religious slaughter by reducing stress and pain and improving meat quality and food safety. The objective quantification of knife sharpness, proper regular training of slaughterers, and slow slaughter rate are the challenges faced by the meat industry.

Electroencephalogram and Physiological Responses as Affected by Slaughter Empathy in Goats.

Recent advances in emotions and cognitive science make it imperative to assess the emotional stress in goats at the time of slaughter. The present study was envisaged to study the electroencephalogram and physiological responses as affected by slaughter empathy in goats. A total of 12 goats were divided into two groups viz., E-group (goats exposed to slaughter environment, n = 6) and S-group (goat slaughtered in front of E-group, n = 6). The electroencephalogram and physiological responses in male Boer cross goats (E-group) were recorded in a slaughterhouse in two stages viz., control (C) without exposure to the slaughter of conspecifics and treatment (T) while visualizing the slaughter of conspecifics (S-slaughter group). The exposure of the goat to the slaughter of a conspecific resulted in a heightened emotional state. It caused significant alterations in neurobiological activity as recorded with the significant changes in the EEG spectrum (beta waves (p = 0.000491), theta waves (p = 0.017), and median frequency MF or F50 (p = 0.002)). Emotional stress was also observed to significantly increase blood glucose (p = 0.031) and a non-significant (p = 0.225) increase in heart rate in goats. Thus, slaughter empathy was observed to exert a significant effect on the electric activity of neurons in the cerebrocortical area of the brain and an increase in blood glucose content.

Improving animal welfare status and meat quality through assessment of stress biomarkers: A critical review.

Stress induces various physiological and biochemical alterations in the animal body, which are used to assess the stress status of animals. Blood profiles, serum hormones, enzymes, and physiological conditions such as body temperature, heart, and breathing rate of animals are the most commonly used stress biomarkers in the livestock sector. Previous exposure, genetics, stress adaptation, intensity, duration, and rearing practices result in wide intra- and inter-animal variations in the expression of various stress biomarkers. The use of meat proteomics by adequately analyzing the expression of various muscle proteins such as heat shock proteins (HSPs), acute phase proteins (APPs), texture, and tenderness biomarkers help predict meat quality and stress in animals before slaughter. Thus, there is a need to identify non-invasive, rapid, and accurate stress biomarkers that can objectively assess stress in animals. The present manuscript critically reviews various aspects of stress biomarkers in animals and their application in mitigating preslaughter stress in meat production.

Pre-slaughter stress mitigation in goats: Prospects and challenges.

Over the years, the handling of goats (loading, transport, unloading, time spent in lairage) prior to slaughter as well as the slaughter process (stunning, and bleeding) has largely applied to other livestock which impairs the wellbeing of goats as well as their products due to the difference in behavior among species. Numerous factors (feeding management, production systems, environmental conditions, and physiological status of the animals) predispose goats to pre-slaughter stress, resulting in increased stress responses during the transport, lairage, and slaughter process that influence the meat quality attributes. Goats are more susceptible to pre-slaughter stress relative to other ruminants. In this review, stress factors relating to goats, indicators as well as management, were elucidated which will assist producers in making informed decisions on minimizing goat stress for the betterment of the meat quality and goat industry as a whole.

New insights in improving sustainability in meat production: opportunities and challenges.

Treating livestock as senseless production machines has led to rampant depletion of natural resources, enhanced greenhouse gas emissions, gross animal welfare violations, and other ethical issues. It has essentially instigated constant scrutiny of conventional meat production by various experts and scientists. Sustainably in the meat sector is a big challenge which requires a multifaced and holistic approach. Novel tools like digitalization of the farming system and livestock market, precision livestock farming, application of remote sensing and artificial intelligence to manage production and environmental impact/GHG emission, can help in attaining sustainability in this sector. Further, improving nutrient use efficiency and recycling in feed and animal production through integration with agroecology and industrial ecology, improving individual animal and herd health by ensuring proper biosecurity measures and selective breeding, and welfare by mitigating animal stress during production are also key elements in achieving sustainability in meat production. In addition, sustainability bears a direct relationship with various social dimensions of meat production efficiency such as non-market attributes, balance between demand and consumption, market and policy failures. The present review critically examines the various aspects that significantly impact the efficiency and sustainability of meat production.

Technological interventions in improving the functionality of proteins during processing of meat analogs.

Meat analogs have opened a new horizon of opportunities for developing a sustainable alternative for meat and meat products. Proteins are an integral part of meat analogs and their functionalities have been extensively studied to mimic meat-like appearance and texture. Proteins have a vital role in imparting texture, nutritive value, and organoleptic attributes to meat analogs. Processing of suitable proteins from vegetable, mycoproteins, algal, and single-cell protein sources remains a challenge and several technological interventions ranging from the isolation of proteins to the processing of products are required. The present paper reviews and discusses in detail various proteins (soy proteins, wheat gluten, zein, algal proteins, mycoproteins, pulses, potato, oilseeds, pseudo-cereals, and grass) and their suitability for meat analog production. The review also discusses other associated aspects such as processing interventions that can be adapted to improve the functional and textural attributes of proteins in the processing of meat analogs (extrusion, spinning, Couette shear cell, additive manufacturing/3D printing, and freeze structuring). '.

Recovery of Recurrent Parent Genome in a Marker-Assisted Backcrossing Against Rice Blast and Blight Infections Using Functional Markers and SSRs.

The most vital aspect of marker-assisted backcross breeding is the recurrent parent genome recovery. This enables the selection of only parents with recovered recipient/recurrent parent genome in addition to the targeted genes. The recurrent parent genome recovery (RPGR) ensures that non-desirable genomic segments are removed while the gene of interest is sustained in the recombined progenies without further segregations. This work was aimed at quantifying the RPGR of backcross populations with introgression of bacterial leaf blight resistance genes. Putra-1, a Malaysian elite variety, high yielding with inherent resistance to blast but susceptible to bacterial leaf blight (BLB), was crossed with IRBB60 which is resistant to BLB disease. The IRBB60 has four Xoo resistance genes-Xa4, xa5, xa13 and Xa21. Tightly linked polymorphic functional and SSR markers were used for foreground selection at every stage of backcrossing to select progenies with introgressed target genes. Background selection was done to quantify the percentage of RPGR in the selected lines using 79 confirmed polymorphic microsatellites. Result obtained showed that the percentage of RPGR was 80.11% at BC1F1, 95.30% at BC2F1 and 95.9% at BC2F2. The introgression of Xa4, xa5, xa13 and Xa21 Xoo resistance genes were faster through the adopted marker-assisted backcross breeding compared to what could be obtained through conventional breeding. All the 16 selected lines displayed resistance to BLB with three lines showing high resistance to the disease. The blast resistance contained in the genetic background of Putra-1 was also sustained in all the selected lines. The newly developed lines were recommended as new rice varieties for commercial cultivation.

Influence of Nigella sativa seeds, Rosmarinus officinalis leaves and their combination on growth performance, immune response and rumen metabolism in Dorper lambs.

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of dietary supplementation of Nigella sativa L. seeds, Rosmarinus officinalis L. leaves and their combination on rumen metabolism, nutrient intake and digestibility, growth performance, immune response and blood metabolites in Dorper lambs. Twenty-four entire male Dorper lambs (18.68 ± 0.6 kg, 4-5 months old) were randomly assigned to a concentrate mixture containing on a dry matter basis either, no supplement (control, T1), 1% R. officinalis leaves (T2), 1% N. sativa seeds (T3) or 1% R. officinalis leaves +1% N. sativa seeds (T4). The lambs had ad libitum access to urea-treated rice straw (UTRS) and were raised for 90 days. Supplemented lambs had greater (P < 0.05) intake of DM and UTRS than the control lambs. The T4 lambs had lower (P < 0.05) nutrient digestibility than those fed other treatments. Total and daily weight gain was greater (P < 0.05) in T2 lambs than those fed other diets. The T3 and T4 lambs had greater (P < 0.05) ruminal pH than the T1 and T2 lambs. Supplemented lambs had lower (P < 0.05) ruminal total volatile fatty acids, acetate, propionate, NH3-N and C18:0 than the control lambs. The T4 lambs had lower (P < 0.05) population of Fibrobacter succinogenes, Ruminococcus albus, methanogens and total protozoa compared with those fed other diets. Supplemented lambs had lower (P < 0.05) neutrophils, basophils and serum urea and greater (P < 0.05) serum IgA and IgG compared with the control lambs. The current results emphasised the variation in the efficacy of medicinal plants in ruminant nutrition.

Effects of dietary Kleinhovia hospita and Leucaena leucocephala leaves on rumen fermentation and microbial population in goats fed treated rice straw.

The effects of partial replacement of dietary protein by forages on rumen fermentation and microbiology in goats were examined. Four fistulated Boer bucks were used in a 4 × 4 Latin square design. The goats were fed 60% of urea-treated rice straw and 40% dietary treatment (Kleinhovia hospita (KH), Leucaena leucocephala (LL), mixture of K. hospita with L. leucocephala (KHLL)) and concentrate as the control. Rumen fluid from the animals was collected at 0, 2, 4, 6, and 12 h postprandial for analysis. The KHLL diet had a greater (P < 0.05) molar proportion of acetate than the control diet throughout the sampling period. At 6 h postprandial, the KHLL goats had a significantly lower (P < 0.05) ammonia nitrogen than the goats fed other diets. The molar proportion of propionate (24.7 and 25.8 mol/100 mol) was greater in the rumen of KHLL goats compared with those fed other diets at 2 and 12 h postprandial, respectively. The KHLL diet had lower (P < 0.05) butyrate than other dietary treatments. At 4 h postprandial, the control goats had a lower (P < 0.05) population of total bacteria while the KHLL goats had a greater (P < 0.05) population at 4 and 12 h postprandial compared with those fed other diets. The LL, KH, and KHLL goats had lower (P < 0.05) populations of protozoa and methanogens and a greater (P < 0.05) population of Ruminococcus albus compared with the control goats. The KHLL leaves could be fed to goats without compromising rumen metabolism.