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Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway

On-farm emergency slaughter (OFES) accounts for more than 4% of all cattle slaughter in Norway. The practice raises questions about animal welfare, public health, and the sustainability of cattle production. The objective of this study was to describe the reasons for OFES as stated on the OFES veter...

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Autores principales: Skúladóttir, Gíslína, Hunter-Holmøy, Ingrid, Phythian, Clare Joan, Myhrene, Guro, Martin, Adam Dunstan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9751451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36532349
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1067489
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author Skúladóttir, Gíslína
Hunter-Holmøy, Ingrid
Phythian, Clare Joan
Myhrene, Guro
Martin, Adam Dunstan
author_facet Skúladóttir, Gíslína
Hunter-Holmøy, Ingrid
Phythian, Clare Joan
Myhrene, Guro
Martin, Adam Dunstan
author_sort Skúladóttir, Gíslína
collection PubMed
description On-farm emergency slaughter (OFES) accounts for more than 4% of all cattle slaughter in Norway. The practice raises questions about animal welfare, public health, and the sustainability of cattle production. The objective of this study was to describe the reasons for OFES as stated on the OFES veterinary certificate. Veterinary certificates for OFES for each animal slaughtered in four chosen slaughterhouses from 4 months (January–April–July–October) in 2018 were transcribed into a database. Secondary data were extracted from national cattle databases and used to supplement primary data with information on breed, sex, and birth date. Breeds were divided into dairy and beef cattle. The reasons for slaughter were reported in text on the certificates and were categorized in the study into 5 reasons: recumbency, mammary gland, obstetrics, locomotion, and other, with a total of 20 subcategories for detail. In total, 2,229 forms were included in the study. Thirteen breeds were represented, although dominated by Norwegian Red within dairy and crossbreed within beef. Of the cattle in the study, 46% were slaughtered for locomotion reasons, thereof almost half for lameness. Furthermore, 23% of the cattle in the study were slaughtered for recumbency and 17% for prolapse or dystocia. A higher proportion of dairy cows were slaughtered because of reasons related to mammary glands than beef cows, 10 and 2%, respectively. Almost 30% of beef cows were slaughtered for obstetrics reasons compared to 12% of dairy cows. The results of this study shed light on the reasons for OFES, which is highly relevant to greater discussions of sustainability in cattle production and animal welfare related to on-farm mortality.
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spelling pubmed-97514512022-12-16 Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway Skúladóttir, Gíslína Hunter-Holmøy, Ingrid Phythian, Clare Joan Myhrene, Guro Martin, Adam Dunstan Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science On-farm emergency slaughter (OFES) accounts for more than 4% of all cattle slaughter in Norway. The practice raises questions about animal welfare, public health, and the sustainability of cattle production. The objective of this study was to describe the reasons for OFES as stated on the OFES veterinary certificate. Veterinary certificates for OFES for each animal slaughtered in four chosen slaughterhouses from 4 months (January–April–July–October) in 2018 were transcribed into a database. Secondary data were extracted from national cattle databases and used to supplement primary data with information on breed, sex, and birth date. Breeds were divided into dairy and beef cattle. The reasons for slaughter were reported in text on the certificates and were categorized in the study into 5 reasons: recumbency, mammary gland, obstetrics, locomotion, and other, with a total of 20 subcategories for detail. In total, 2,229 forms were included in the study. Thirteen breeds were represented, although dominated by Norwegian Red within dairy and crossbreed within beef. Of the cattle in the study, 46% were slaughtered for locomotion reasons, thereof almost half for lameness. Furthermore, 23% of the cattle in the study were slaughtered for recumbency and 17% for prolapse or dystocia. A higher proportion of dairy cows were slaughtered because of reasons related to mammary glands than beef cows, 10 and 2%, respectively. Almost 30% of beef cows were slaughtered for obstetrics reasons compared to 12% of dairy cows. The results of this study shed light on the reasons for OFES, which is highly relevant to greater discussions of sustainability in cattle production and animal welfare related to on-farm mortality. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9751451/ /pubmed/36532349 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1067489 Text en Copyright © 2022 Skúladóttir, Hunter-Holmøy, Phythian, Myhrene and Martin. https://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
Skúladóttir, Gíslína
Hunter-Holmøy, Ingrid
Phythian, Clare Joan
Myhrene, Guro
Martin, Adam Dunstan
Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway
title Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway
title_full Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway
title_fullStr Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway
title_full_unstemmed Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway
title_short Occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in Norway
title_sort occurrence and reasons for on-farm emergency slaughter of cattle in norway
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9751451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36532349
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1067489
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