Impact of Procedures and Human-Animal Interactions during Transport and Slaughter on Animal Welfare of Pigs: A Systematic Literature Review

Animal welfare during the transport and slaughter of pigs is in the interests of consumers and producers. All procedures and human-animal interactions on the day of slaughter are potentially stressful for the pigs. Good handling practices—calm handling and a handling set to the individual needs of the pigs—and management of the animals provide the maximum animal welfare at slaughter, but only by avoiding or minimizing any further external stressors in addition to the transport and the slaughter itself. By conducting a systematic literature review, we wanted to find out which procedures and human-animal interactions were found by researchers to have an impact on welfare during pig transport and slaughter. Direct human-animal contact and the management of transport and slaughter procedures were identified as major influencing factors. As the animal welfare-sensitive areas of stunning, control of stunning, and bleeding are highly important, personnel should be trained regularly to ensure good practices and animal welfare. Deficient handling and procedures in the transport/slaughter processes can be critically scrutinized and corrected only when personnel are sufficiently educated. Knowledge of best handling practices is necessary to reflect on our own and other personnel’s behaviour and to maintain awareness of animal welfare. Animal suffering caused by humans is not acceptable

Verification of documentation plausibility in equine passports–drug documentation for geldings in comparison to self-reported veterinarian drug usage for equine castrations in Germany

The ‘positive list for equines’ (Regulation (EC) No 1950/2006) was implemented in the European Union in 2006. The drugs listed are approved for use in slaughter equines under certain conditions, although those drugs are not approved for use in livestock and are not listed in Table 1 of the annex to Regulation (EU) No 37/2010. The usage of such drugs has to be documented in the equine passport and a withdrawal period of six months must be adhered to before the equine can be slaughtered for human consumption. Since the withdrawal period is long, correct documentation is particularly important. This study compared the results of two sub-studies. In sub-study 1, 116 veterinarians and nine equine clinics in Germany were surveyed about the methods and drugs used for castration of equine stallions. In sub-study 2, the documentational findings of 195 equine passports, belonging to 194 horses and one donkey, were analyzed. Regarding sub-study 1, the most commonly used method for castration was reported as ‘laid down’. Drug combinations entailing at least one drug from the ‘positive list’ were used by 86.7% (91/105) of veterinarians castrating horse stallions ‘laid down’ and by 64.3% (36/56) of veterinarians utilizing this method on donkey stallions. Regarding sub-study 2, drug documentation was verified in the passports of 4.6% (9/195) of all equines and in just 12.0% (3/25) of those belonging to slaughter equine geldings. Anesthetics from the ‘positive list’ were documented in 4.0% (1/25) of equine passports belonging to slaughter geldings. Because of the high discrepancy of the drug combinations used by veterinarians and the documentation actually found in equine passports, we conclude that drug administration is very seldom documented in equine passports in Germany. This could result in drug residues in equine meat and poses a potential risk for consumers

Innovative e-Learning Training Modules to Improve Animal Welfare during Transport and Slaughter of Pigs: A Pretest–Posttest Study to Pre-Evaluate the General Didactical Concept

In addition to the information on the possession of a certificate of competence, there are no concrete obligations for repetitive training for personnel handling live animals at transport and slaughter. Deficiencies in the animal-welfare-friendly handling of pigs are known. The developed pilot modules “Handling of pigs” and “Electrical stunning” were tested in a pretest–posttest study in German and Romanian using questions of knowledge before and after the implementation of the modules. In this study, 45 and 46 datasets of participants could be analyzed. The mean percentages of correctly answered questions in the posttest increased by 5.6% in the module “Handling of pigs” and by 10.6% in the module “Electrical stunning”. A significant interaction was found for the language match and trend categories in the module “Handling of pigs”. No Romanian native speaker had a positive trend in this module. For both modules separately, participant education level significantly interacted with the language match and the presence or absence of a certificate of competence. Comparing the percentages of the correct given answers, significant interactions in the subgroups were more common in the module “Electrical stunning”. One question in “Electrical stunning” was correctly answered significantly more often in the posttest. Because of the positive mean trends of knowledge within this pre-evaluation, we assume the didactical concept was suitable for our target groups. Holders of a certificate of competence also gave more correct answers in the post-test. This underlines the importance of repetitive training. Differences in the trends of knowledge gain seem to be topic and experience related

Food chain information for broilers: Results of a Europe-wide survey on status quo, usability and suggestions for improvement

A modern risk-based meat safety assurance system (RB-MSAS) for poultry includes information systems to better adapt to risks for meat safety. Food Chain Information (FCI) according to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 includes data on animal health, laboratory test results and further information that is relevant for consumer protection. FCI has to be transferred from the farm to the abattoir where the data analysis leads to adaptations of the slaughter process and/or meat inspection. As the EU regulation describes the required FCI imprecisely and without recommendations for meaningful reactions to specific information, implementation differs between European countries and even between abattoirs within one country. To assess the status quo of transfer, use and the usefulness of FCI in Europe, we conducted a survey on FCI for broilers among European stakeholders. The answers of 32 respondents, working in 14 different European countries as official veterinarians/meat inspection officers, food business operators/quality assurance managers, or in other positions in broiler meat hygiene, were included in the analysis. Overall, 75% (24/32) of the respondents stated they find FCI helpful for decision-making. All respondents (56%, 18/32) with electronic access to FCI find the transmission procedure practical. Most respondents get information about previous ante-mortem (81%, 26/32) and post-mortem (91%, 29/32) inspection results for flocks from the same holding of provenance. Likewise, most respondents receive data on mortality rate (88%, 28/32) and veterinary medications with a withdrawal period that have been administered during the fattening period (84%, 27/32). Overall, 53% of the respondents indicated that the entire fattening period would be the optimal relevant period for recording the administration of veterinary medications with a withdrawal period. In addition to this information, the respondents desired to have more data about further treatment (28%, 9/32) and data from the private veterinarian responsible for the farm (25%, 8/32). Knowledge of these data especially led to various measures being initiated at the abattoir, according to the respondents. In contrast, some specific production data were reported as also an important part of FCI, even though these data have little impact on the measures to protect human health that are taken in the slaughter process or at post-mortem inspection. All respondents transferred information about findings in the abattoir back to the farmers: these data were ante-mortem (72%, 23/32) and post-mortem (100%, 32/32) inspection results as well as further information (28%, 6/32). Our study shows that FCI for broilers is already widely successfully established as part of the RB-MSAS in Europe. Important information, like the ante- and post-mortem inspection results, is mostly available. Recommendations for improvement and for data to be included based on our study and literature are, inter alia: electronic data transfer; on-farm mortality; diseases occurring on-farm, especially those shortly before slaughter; all data on treatment with veterinary medications; EFSA's harmonised epidemiological indicators and; specific production data. Further studies are needed to gain a deeper understanding of correlations between ante-mortem data for the flock and findings at post-mortem inspection. Specific measures to be taken as a result of incoming information need to be stipulated in order that FCI is used more efficiently as a risk assessment tool in RB-MSAS

Opportunities to Improve Animal Welfare during Transport and Slaughter of Cattle and Pigs through Staff Training - Results of a Delphi Survey

To improve animal welfare for cattle and pigs during transport and at slaughter, online training modules for all staff including employees in the lairage pen, the slaughter line as well as animal welfare officers are developed at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Before starting the development of these modules, an expert elicitation survey using a modified Delphi approach was performed to identify action points considered most relevant for animal welfare during transport and slaughter, and as having the potential for improvement through training. In total, 49 participating experts rated predetermined action points of each step in the transport and slaughter process in two survey rounds. The rating scale included numbers 0 (=‘not relevant’, respectively ‘no possibility of improvement’) to 10 (=‘very relevant’, respectively ‘very high possibility of improvement’). None of the action points were rated with a median score of less than 5. Assessment of fitness for transport, unloading at the abattoir, handling at stunning and exsanguination were amongst the highest rated action points, and were therefore selected to develop online training modules. The Delphi approach was seen as a valuable method to include external expertise to select the most relevant action points for the development of online training modules

Linker Flexibility Facilitates Module Exchange in Fungal Hybrid PKS-NRPS Engineering

Polyketide synthases (PKSs) and nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) each give rise to a vast array of complex bioactive molecules with further complexity added by the existence of natural PKS-NRPS fusions. Rational genetic engineering for the production of natural product derivatives is desirable for the purpose of incorporating new functionalities into pre-existing molecules, or for optimization of known bioactivities. We sought to expand the range of natural product diversity by combining modules of PKS-NRPS hybrids from different hosts, hereby producing novel synthetic natural products. We succeeded in the construction of a functional cross-species chimeric PKS-NRPS expressed in Aspergillus nidulans. Module swapping of the two PKS-NRPS natural hybrids CcsA from Aspergillus clavatus involved in the biosynthesis of cytochalasin E and related Syn2 from rice plant pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae lead to production of novel hybrid products, demonstrating that the rational re-design of these fungal natural product enzymes is feasible. We also report the structure of four novel pseudo pre-cytochalasin intermediates, niduclavin and niduporthin along with the chimeric compounds niduchimaeralin A and B, all indicating that PKS-NRPS activity alone is insufficient for proper assembly of the cytochalasin core structure. Future success in the field of biocombinatorial synthesis of hybrid polyketide-nonribosomal peptides relies on the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of inter-modular polyketide chain transfer. Therefore, we expressed several PKS-NRPS linker-modified variants. Intriguingly, the linker anatomy is less complex than expected, as these variants displayed great tolerance with regards to content and length, showing a hitherto unreported flexibility in PKS-NRPS hybrids, with great potential for synthetic biology-driven biocombinatorial chemistry