LETHBRIDGE – A livestock transportation study is designed to improve animal welfare and increase producer profits.Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein, a beef welfare and behaviour specialist at Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Lethbridge, said Canada’s livestock transport regulations are 30 years old and about to be changed.As a result, the industry and regulators decided it was time to know more about transportation, how it affects animal welfare and if simple trailer design changes in ventilation and density rates could produce improvements.Results are expected in three years.Schwartzkopf-Genswein started the study with a survey, of which 10,000 were returned.”Truckers have been passionate to tell their story on livestock transport,” she said. “The industry has been also, and that is why industry is helping to pay for the study. Everybody, it seems, wants to see some things that should be changed.”Following the survey, the researches studied the effects shipping has on fat cattle heading to slaughter, assessed different loading densities for feeder cattle and studied the effect of trailer ventilation on calf sickness and death in transport.Another study will assess trailer design and its impact on the welfare of animals in each of the five separate compartments that exist in most transport trailers.Another study will assess the optimum time livestock should remain in a trailer before animal welfare is adversely affected.In Canada, cattle can remain on a trailer for up to 52 hours.The average length of a haul in Canada is 16 hours from start to finish.Schwartzkopf-Genswein said studies show that if a trucker has more than six years experience hauling cattle, the cattle will lose less weight than animals in loads hauled by less experienced drivers.
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