Livestock Handling and Transport (2nd Edition)
Edited by Dr. Temple Grandin, award-winning inventor of the "stairway to heaven" animal handling system for meat packing plants
Hardback 232 pages List price: US$110.00 UK£60.00
Published by CABI International ISBN 0-85199-409-01
Ordering information (in new window):
USA & international Canada UK & EuropeThis book consists of 20 chapters written by 23 authors. All make interesting reading, even if they are not directly applicable to pigs.
Chapter 1 is an introduction to the economics of handling and transport by the editor, in which she draws attention to the importance of management attitudes, particularly training managers, and the use of financial incentives. The second chapter (Gonyou) reveals the behavioural principles behind successful animal handling and the third (Siegel and Gross) the general principles of stress and well-being. Chapter 4 (Broom) discusses welfare assessment and problem areas.
Chapters 5, 6 and 7 discuss cattle handling under extensive conditions and in intensive systems and under range conditions. Chapter 8 repeats the procedure for dairy cattle and chapter 9 discusses cattle transport.
Chapter 10 discusses the behavioural principles of sheep handling and chapter 11 designing sheep yards and shearing sheds, naturally enough all by world-renowned Australian authors. In chapter 12, Huw Williams (formerly of RVC) discusses intensive sheep handling.
Chapter 13 is a stand-alone chapter, and very interesting it is too, on the use of dogs for herding and guarding livestock.
Chapter 14 is concerned with the behavioural principles of pig handling (Hemsworth, Werribee, Australia) and the chapter is written with a view to understanding the key relationship: the human-animal interaction. It is extremely useful to have fear, fear of humans and fear of novelty discussed, together with learning ability and social interactions. Those who have been to IPVS will be familiar with the concluding parts of the chapter on training stock-people and using the pigs’ natural behaviour to handle and restrain them.
Chapter 15 expands this behavioural basis with a chapter on the transport of pigs (E Lamboiit from Lelystad) and looks in detail at welfare, thermo-regulation, meat quality, contamination and procedures at loading and unloading, treatment during transport and during time in the lairage. Chapter 16 gives an account of horse handling and transport and chapter 17 discusses deer handling and transport (Mathews, New Zealand) and chapter 18 discusses poultry handling and transport (Claire Weeks and Christine Nicol, Bristol). The concluding chapters look at more general subjects, chapter 19 looks at stress physiology during transport (Toby Knowles and Paul Warriss, Bristol) and chapter 20 (Grandin) handling and welfare of livestock in slaughter plants (Grandin). This is a fitting final chapter in an extremely good book, written by one of the world’s greatest authorities on animal welfare.
Perhaps the focus of the book is on cattle and this as it should be as more study has been made of the species, but all of the chapters are relevant to farm animal medicine and are well worth reading. Both of the chapters on the pigs are well worth reading, not least because they are written by world experts.
Dr. S. H. Done