Transporting cattle from southern Alberta into the United States (US) plays a substantial economic role in the western Canadian beef industry. Thermal environments within cattle transport trailers are dependent on ambient conditions, and if inadequately managed, can be a welfare concern. To effectively manage cattle transport, the environmental conditions throughout the livestock trailer must be understood. The objective of the present study was to investigate the trailer micro-climate and welfare during 5-paired commercial long-haul transports of slaughter cattle from Alberta, Canada to Washington State, US during summer months. In addition, the effect of compartment location and trailer porosity (8.7% vs 9.6%) on trailer micro-climate, shrink and core body temperature were also investigated during the warmest in-transit hour and stationary events. The compartment location had an effect on micro-climate variables where the upper compartment had greater (P < 0.05) temperature than the bottom deck compartments and relative humidity variables had the opposite effect for both the warmest in-transit hour and stationary events. There was also an effect of trailer porosity on micro-climate variables where it was generally warmer in the trailer with the higher porosity in the stationary event. Differences between trailers included 2 additional roof hatches on the trailer with lower side-wall porosity and lower internal temperatures, which could suggest the location of the trailer porosity, could be important for heat and moisture exchange during transit. The nose of the trailer with higher porosity had generally warmer internal conditions (larger T(trailer)°C and THI(trailer)) than the trailer with lower porosity. This study also found that the temperatures inside the trailer can be 10.5°C greater than ambient temperatures during stationary events and 9°C greater than ambient levels during the warmest in-transit hour. The average amount of per-animal weight loss was 4.3 0.3 % and was affected by trailer porosity and compartment, which followed the trends in thermal environment variables. The transit status (stationary or in-transit) and trailer porosity affected the vaginal core body temperature of the heifers in transit. The core body temperature was greater during stationary events for animals transported in the trailer with lower porosity. It is suggested that the lower side-wall porosity and/or the shape of perforation pattern could impair the movement of fresh air to the respiratory tract of heifers, thus impacting the main mechanism for dissipating heat. The difference in temperature from the trailer ceiling to the animal level was 3.38°C in the trailer with lower porosity (cooler at the ceiling) and 2.23°C in the trailer with the higher porosity. This relationship also had a compartment location effect that followed the micro-climate compartmental differences. This could suggest that excess heat in the trailer with the lower porosity, that also had lower overall temperatures, exited through roof hatches, while in the trailer with the higher porosity, the heat escaped through the side-wall perforations. This theory also supports the idea that the location of where the porosity is located on the trailer may be important to alleviating heat stress in summer months during transport. The results of this study also indicated that there was no difference in the location of the data logger plane (driver, middle passenger) and within the compartments (front, middle, back), suggesting that compartment location effect is substantial when considering micro-climate but temperatures within a compartment are mostly homogenous. The trip that had average ambient temperatures of 25.9 ± 6.06°C for the entire journey, had a temperature Humidity Index that was considered in the danger or emergency category according to the Livestock Weather Heat Index during 95% of the warmest in-transit hour. This suggests that during ambient temperatures of 25.9°C, both trailers used in this study did not have sufficient heat exchange to mitigate the risk of heat stress for cattle.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:ecommons.usask.ca:10388/ETD-2013-12-1378 |
| Date | 2013 December 1900 |
| Contributors | Schwartzkopf-Genswein, Karen |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, thesis |
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