Occurrence of bruises in slaughtered cattle carcasses in a slaughter plant in Uberlândia-MG

Abstract

In the international meat trade, the customers are increasingly demanding quality of products and animals’ welfare. One of the aspects which interposes the quality of the carcasses is the bruises. So, this research objectified to analyze the occurrence of bruises in cattle’s carcasses and identify its severity, place (hindquarter, ribs and forequarter) and the farm origin of each carcass. The research was made in a slaughterhouse from Uberlândia (MG), on January, 2010, where 697 bovine carcasses were evaluated. According to statistics, the distance between the farms and the slaughterhouse didn’t have a significant effect on the results. From the total carcasses, 631 were injured. Among them, only 6 carcasses had extensive bruises in the whole carcass. There were 2277 bruises in the total: 1547 in the hindquarter, 405 in the ribs and 325 in the forequarter. The majority of them were Score I, followed by the Score II and, with less frequency, the Score III. Despite the high occurrence of the bruises, principally in the hindquarter, where the prime beefs are located, the majority of these injuries were score I, in other words, superficial injuries that affect only the subcutaneous tissue, which makes the problem less concerning.