Effect of Transport Stress and Pre-slaughter Practices on Meat Quality of Animals

Abstract

Now-a-days the meat consumers are increasingly demanding the animal meat of high aesthetic value which directly or indirectly indicates the quality of meat. The present study was conducted aiming to investigate the effect of transport stress and pre-slaughter practices on the meat quality of cattle and buffalo. A total of 20 meat samples (cattle: 10 and buffalo: 10) were collected from Firingibazar City Corporation slaughter house, Chittagong, Bangladesh. The quality of collected meat samples were determined in laboratory by using the parameters: moisture content, PH, water holding capacity (WHC), extract release volume (ERV), total viable count (TVC) and tyrosine value (TV). The differences between cattle meat quality parameters of two transport duration groups (≤2 hours and 2 hours) were statistically insignificant (p0.05). But significant variation (p0.05) between the groups was found for carabeef in terms of PH. In case of resting duration, only ERV values of beef quality varied significantly (p0.05) between two groups (≤12 hours and 12 hours) whereas all parameters of carabeef quality were statistically indifferent (p0.05) between the groups. The feed withdrawal period had statistically insignificant (p0.05) effect on the beef and carabeef quality of two categories (≤12 hours and 12 hours). Finally, the water withdrawal period and fasting period also showed statistically insignificant (p0.05) effect between meat quality parameters of two categories (≤6 hours and 6 hours). The study revealed that the transport duration in buffalo and resting period in cattle might be an important factor of affecting meat quality. To ensure the quality of meat the pre-slaughter management of the animals should be efficient.