In the majority (42 %) of plants assessed, 0-1 % of cattle vocalized, while over 10 % of the cattle vocalized in only 8 % of the plants. Repeated use of an electric prod was responsible for as high as 17 % of the vocalizations. Reducing the voltage on an electric prod was able to reduce vocalizations by 5 % in one plant. Addition of illumination to a dark entrance and addition of a false floor to a conveyor restrainer was sufficient to reduce the number of cattle who backed up or balked by 8-15 %. Because the number of cattle who balked was reduced, electric prod use was also be reduced. In one plant, reduction in the pressure exerted by a neck restraint reduced the percentage of cattle vocalizing from 23 to 0 %. The mean percentage of cattle who vocalized in the plants initially was 12.8 %. After all of the modifications were made in the plants, the mean percentage of cattle who vocalized was reduced to 0.8 %. Thus, vocalization scoring was proven to be an efficient method for identifying handling and equipment problems that had the potential to compromise animal welfare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the majority (42 %) of plants assessed, 0-1 % of cattle vocalized, while over 10 % of the cattle vocalized in only 8 % of the plants. Repeated use of an electric prod was responsible for as high as 17 % of the vocalizations. Reducing the voltage on an electric prod was able to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[928],"tags":[8882,640,70,2958,13816,19216,19696,19644,171,20007,112,10859,3465,16262,17743,26264,76,20911,6053,8742,27281],"class_list":["post-5084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-al","tag-animal","tag-animal-welfare","tag-animal-welfarebeefbehaviorcattleelectric-prodhandlingrestraintslaughterslaughteringvocalizationwelfare","tag-ass","tag-assess","tag-cattle-vocalizations-are-associated-with-handling-and-equipment-problems-at-beef-slaughter-plants","tag-dd","tag-floor","tag-gh","tag-handling","tag-nat","tag-pea","tag-pl","tag-prod","tag-prod-use","tag-slaughter","tag-t","tag-use","tag-vocal","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}