In the Swedish abattoirs there are assistants that judge the slaughtered animals in regard to diseases and injuries. All diseases and injuries assign different codes. This master’s thesis is about code 42 which means injuries of different kinds like for example bruises etc. These injuries have risen during the transport from the farm to the abattoir lairage or during the stay at the lairage before slaughter. The value the slaughtered body looses because of the fact that meat has to be whittled away charges the abattoirs (SLVFS 1996).
The cattle at Swedish Meats facilities in Uppsala and Skara have more frequent officially recorded code 42 injuries than the rest of Swedish Meats plants in Sweden. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate why Uppsala and Skara more frequently record cattle with code 42 and try to understand where the injuries arise. Because of the fact that Swedish Meats has to stand for all costs from losses of excised meat it is an important issue for Swedish Meats both ethically and financially.
Bruises arise when the skin is exposed for hard beats and the blood vessels tear and blood flows into the surrounding tissue. The blood can be seen through the skin as swollen and blue (Hoffman et al, 1998). Humane pathology books have been used to be able to describe the healing of an injury. The healing starts with an inflammatory phase that consists of three different mechanisms, contraction, reparation and reconstruction. In most cases this three mechanisms work simultaneously (Rubin, 2000).
The study was carried out by working with data that was collected during 1st of January 2005 to 24th of March 2006. Factors that can affect the occurrence of injuries were recorded. These factors are transporters, farms, time in the transport, time at the lairage, category of the animal and weight of the animal. An own study was also carried out where the animals location in the lairage was recorded, which means in which line or loose box the animals were before slaughter. The slaughtered bodies were followed up in the slaughtering hall to see if the animals had injuries and the placement on the of these possible injuries.
Factors that matter the most why an animal is getting injuries are:
• Which category of animals the animal belongs to, the females a...
