The impact of some environmental factors on the welfare of beef cattle

The purpose of this study is to assessment of welfare at the farm level in Black Angus, Red Angus and Hereford beef cattle imported to Turkey at 7 months of age and to examine of effects of animal weighing with respect to animal welfare done as a farm rutine for live weight controls At the beginning of the fattening period, the animals were individually numbered, vaccinated, treated with antiparasitic medication and housed in a free-stalls throughout the fattening period. The animals fed on an ad libitum basis with a diet containing of 13.4% of crude protein and 2600 kcal / kg of metabolic energy. In the study, a total 150 beef cattle consisting of 50 heads from each cattle breed as Black Angus, Red Angus and Hereford were used. The welfare assessment protocol for beef cattle which developed in Welfare Quality Project has been used to evaluate the welfare of beef cattle. During the fattening period, sick animals, compulsory slaughters and deaths were recorded daily and animals were weighed on a monthly basis. The effect of the weighing performed at the end of the fattening on the well-being of the cattle was investigated. Blood samples were collected twice from the animals twice before the animals were removed from padog and after the animals were removed from the weighing platform. The number of dirty cattle in Black Angus group was higher than the other two breed groups. According to the Black Angus and Red Angus breeds, the ratios of sick animal, obligatory slaughters and deaths were higher in Hereford. During the fattening period, cattle breed did not significantly affect the live weight values but the highest slaughter weight results were detected in the Black Angus. The slaughter weight of Hereford cattle were low. The results of the human avoidance test showed that, all cattle from three breeds did not allow to the test person to touch their heads but the Hereford cattle showed less fear reaction to human beings. Weighing process caused stress in beef cattle and significant increases were determined in plasma cortisol, MDA and AOA values of weighted cattle. The behavior frequencies associated with the negative emotional state displayed during the weighing were highest in Red Angus and lowest in Hereford. According to the results obtained in this study animal weighing platforms can be modified according to behavior characteristics of cattle breeds and more research should be done to investigate the effect of the weighing stress on the carcass quality.