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Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare

Abattoir post-mortem inspections offer a useful tool for animal disease surveillance. The present cross-sectional study aimed at assessing the prevalence of rumen mucosa, lung, and liver lesions in 153 randomly selected batches of finishing beef cattle through a post-mortem inspection at the abattoi...

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Autores principales: Magrin, Luisa, Brscic, Marta, Lora, Isabella, Prevedello, Paola, Contiero, Barbara, Cozzi, Giulio, Gottardo, Flaviana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7843922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33521094
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.622837
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author Magrin, Luisa
Brscic, Marta
Lora, Isabella
Prevedello, Paola
Contiero, Barbara
Cozzi, Giulio
Gottardo, Flaviana
author_facet Magrin, Luisa
Brscic, Marta
Lora, Isabella
Prevedello, Paola
Contiero, Barbara
Cozzi, Giulio
Gottardo, Flaviana
author_sort Magrin, Luisa
collection PubMed
description Abattoir post-mortem inspections offer a useful tool for animal disease surveillance. The present cross-sectional study aimed at assessing the prevalence of rumen mucosa, lung, and liver lesions in 153 randomly selected batches of finishing beef cattle through a post-mortem inspection at the abattoir. At least 15 animals per batch were inspected at slaughter by two veterinarians for a total of 2,161 animals (1,376 bulls; 785 heifers) coming from 80 Italian commercial farms. Rumens were inspected by recording as binary variables (presence/absence) signs of hyperkeratosis, ruminitis, ulcer, and star scars. Similarly, lungs were inspected for signs of pneumonia and livers for signs of lipidosis, abscesses, and/or adherence. Hyperkeratosis of the mucosa and signs of ruminitis were detected in 58 and 30% of the inspected rumens, respectively. Ruminal star scars were more prevalent in bulls than in heifers (18 vs. 11%; P < 0.05). Signs of severe pneumonia were observed in 10% of the lungs; abscess and/or adherence in 4% of the livers. Hyperkeratosis of rumen mucosa was correlated to signs of ruminitis, and signs of ruminitis were correlated to star scars. No correlations were found between hepatic lesions and any other rumen or lung disorders. The wide variability observed among batches for the prevalence of specific lesions suggested the development of a benchmarking system to provide feedback to the farm veterinarians, as these lesions can be reflective of a subclinical disease status not easy to be detected in the live animal. Quartiles of the batch prevalence of rumen, lung, and liver alterations (if ≥1%) were calculated as a benchmarking tool, and third quartile value was proposed as an alarm threshold for each lesion. The use of the benchmarking system could allow to allocate each inspected batch to a specific “health class.” Critical batches with a prevalence above the alarm threshold for a given lesion should be reported to veterinarians of the origin farms where actions should be taken in order to identify and lower the risk factors for that specific health issue. Knowledge of post-mortem inspection data along with the implementation of the proposed benchmarking system should help farm veterinarians to improve herd management from a health and welfare perspective.
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spelling pubmed-78439222021-01-30 Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare Magrin, Luisa Brscic, Marta Lora, Isabella Prevedello, Paola Contiero, Barbara Cozzi, Giulio Gottardo, Flaviana Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Abattoir post-mortem inspections offer a useful tool for animal disease surveillance. The present cross-sectional study aimed at assessing the prevalence of rumen mucosa, lung, and liver lesions in 153 randomly selected batches of finishing beef cattle through a post-mortem inspection at the abattoir. At least 15 animals per batch were inspected at slaughter by two veterinarians for a total of 2,161 animals (1,376 bulls; 785 heifers) coming from 80 Italian commercial farms. Rumens were inspected by recording as binary variables (presence/absence) signs of hyperkeratosis, ruminitis, ulcer, and star scars. Similarly, lungs were inspected for signs of pneumonia and livers for signs of lipidosis, abscesses, and/or adherence. Hyperkeratosis of the mucosa and signs of ruminitis were detected in 58 and 30% of the inspected rumens, respectively. Ruminal star scars were more prevalent in bulls than in heifers (18 vs. 11%; P < 0.05). Signs of severe pneumonia were observed in 10% of the lungs; abscess and/or adherence in 4% of the livers. Hyperkeratosis of rumen mucosa was correlated to signs of ruminitis, and signs of ruminitis were correlated to star scars. No correlations were found between hepatic lesions and any other rumen or lung disorders. The wide variability observed among batches for the prevalence of specific lesions suggested the development of a benchmarking system to provide feedback to the farm veterinarians, as these lesions can be reflective of a subclinical disease status not easy to be detected in the live animal. Quartiles of the batch prevalence of rumen, lung, and liver alterations (if ≥1%) were calculated as a benchmarking tool, and third quartile value was proposed as an alarm threshold for each lesion. The use of the benchmarking system could allow to allocate each inspected batch to a specific “health class.” Critical batches with a prevalence above the alarm threshold for a given lesion should be reported to veterinarians of the origin farms where actions should be taken in order to identify and lower the risk factors for that specific health issue. Knowledge of post-mortem inspection data along with the implementation of the proposed benchmarking system should help farm veterinarians to improve herd management from a health and welfare perspective. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7843922/ /pubmed/33521094 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.622837 Text en Copyright © 2021 Magrin, Brscic, Lora, Prevedello, Contiero, Cozzi and Gottardo. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Magrin, Luisa
Brscic, Marta
Lora, Isabella
Prevedello, Paola
Contiero, Barbara
Cozzi, Giulio
Gottardo, Flaviana
Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare
title Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare
title_full Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare
title_fullStr Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare
title_full_unstemmed Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare
title_short Assessment of Rumen Mucosa, Lung, and Liver Lesions at Slaughter as Benchmarking Tool for the Improvement of Finishing Beef Cattle Health and Welfare
title_sort assessment of rumen mucosa, lung, and liver lesions at slaughter as benchmarking tool for the improvement of finishing beef cattle health and welfare
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7843922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33521094
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.622837
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