The effects of welfare-related management practices on carcass characteristics for beef cattle

The improvement of farm animal welfare through management practices has become important despite the fact that there is a conflict between animal welfare and production efficiency. It may be possible to find associations between production and management practices related to animal welfare, such as management strategies to enhance both production and animal welfare. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of different fattening management practices with respect to animal welfare on the carcass characteristics in Japanese beef cattle fattening systems at the farm level. The face-to-face interview survey on welfare-related management practices was conducted with 30 beef fattening farmers who sold more than 5 animals from July 2014 to March 2015 in the carcass market in Shiga Prefecture. The best linear unbiased predictors of each farm (the so-called farm BLUP) for carcass traits (carcass weight, CWT; marbling score, BMS; longissimus muscle area, LMA; rib thickness, RT; and subcutaneous fat thickness, SFT) and carcass unit price (CUP) were estimated from the data collected at the carcass market. The effect of management practices on farm BLUPs for carcass traits and CUP were tested using one-way ANOVA. For management practices, there were significant effects of routine claw trimming on farm BLUP for SFT (P < 0.05), dehorning for CUP (P < 0.05), and nose ring for BMS (P < 0.05) and CUP (P < 0.01). In Japan, some farmers who purchased stock calves at the calf markets maintain them in isolated pens before grouping them at the start of fattening, and this management had a significant effect on farm BLUPs for RT (P < 0.05), CWT, and LMA (P < 0.01). Likewise, the equipment of additional identification tags had a significant effect on farm BLUP for CWT (P < 0.05). For housing management, the floor type significantly affected the farm BLUP for LMA (P < 0.05). These results suggest that the consideration of animal welfare at the farm level in beef fattening systems might improve the quantity and quality of the beef produced.