ANSC 2307: Farm Animal Welfare - Handling, Husbandry, and Transport

Essential vocabulary flashcards covering low-stress animal handling, behavioral principles, painful management procedures, and livestock transportation welfare standards.

Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive (LIMA)

A handling framework that prioritizes creating positive associations, limiting positive punishment, promoting positive reinforcement, avoiding aversive equipment, and using the minimum necessary restraint.

Pork Quality Standards

Objective visual standards used to grade pork carcases based on color, texture, exudation (e.g., PSE, RFN, DFD), and intramuscular marbling scores.

PSE (Pale, Soft, and Exudative)

A pork quality defect resulting in meat that is pale pinkish-gray in color, very soft in texture, and prone to excessive water loss and shrinkage.

DFD (Dark, Firm, and Dry)

A meat condition characterized by a dark purplish-red color, very firm and dry surface texture, and high water-holding capacity, often associated with chronic pre-slaughter stress.

RFN (Reddish pink, Firm, and Non-exudative)

The ideal quality grade of fresh pork displaying desirable reddish-pink color, firm texture, and normal water-holding capacity.

Blind Spot (Cattle)

The area located directly behind cattle where they have no visual field; entering this zone causes cattle to lose sight of the handler and startle upon sudden movements.

Flight Zone

The personal space boundary surrounding an animal that dictates its flight reaction; handlers work on the perimeter of this zone to initiate calm walking movement.

Point of Balance

A pivot point on an animal's body located at the shoulder; a handler walking past this point in the opposite direction inside the flight zone encourages the animal to move forward.

Squeeze Chute

A specialized restraint stall with adjustable side panels and a headgate designed to hold livestock securely for veterinary examination and husbandry procedures.

Mellor et al. (2008) Pain Assessment Framework

A three-part ethical and scientific evaluation method for painful husbandry interventions: 1) Is it necessary? 2) What are the harms caused? 3) Do the benefits outweigh the harm?

Castration

The surgical, chemical, or mechanical removal of testicles or suppression of their function, regarded as the most stressful experience in livestock production.

Rubber Ring Castration (Elastration)

A physical castration technique using tight constrictive bands placed around the scrotum to occlude blood supply; presents low acute pain but the highest chronic pain and requires tetanus prophylaxis.

Burdizzo Clamp

A bloodless castration instrument that crushes the spermatic cords through the scrotal neck to interrupt blood supply to the testicles without severing the external skin.

Mulesing

A surgical husbandry procedure performed on sheep to excise strips of wool-bearing skin around the breech to form smooth, bare scar tissue that prevents blowfly strike.

Tail Docking (Livestock)

The removal or shortening of an animal's tail; performed in lambs to cover the anus/vulva to decrease flystrike risk, improve hygiene, and ease shearing.

Tattoo Pliers

A permanent identification tool that uses sharp needle-digit dies to pierce the dermal layer of an animal's ear and deposit indelible black pigment into the tissue.

Universal Swine Ear Notching System

A standard permanent identification code using notches cut into the ears, where incisions on the pig's right ear sum to the litter number and notches on the left ear sum to the individual pig number.

Ear Tipping

A permanent marking procedure carried out under surgical anesthesia and analgesia to remove the distal tip of a feral cat's ear to signal altered status.

Hot Iron Branding

A thermal identification method using high heat to destroy epidermal and dermal tissues to leave a permanent hairless scar; induces acute pain, elevated heart rate, and plasma cortisol surges.

Freeze Branding

A cold identification technique using supercooled metal to selectively destroy pigment-producing melanocytes in hair follicles, causing permanent white hair growth in darker-coated cattle.

Disbudding

The destruction or excision of horn-producing corium cells before they fuse to the skull and before the frontal sinus expands into the horn, typically performed before $8$ weeks of age.

Dehorning

The amputation of developed horns from mature cattle after fusion with the skull, exposing the frontal sinus cavity and carrying risks of sinusitis and hemorrhage.

Embryotomy Wire (Gigli Wire)

A flexible surgical cutting wire operated with two handles that cuts through horn bone via rapid reciprocating friction, providing thermal hemostasis during dehorning.

Guillotine Shears

A heavy-duty manual mechanical device used to shear off large horn structures at the skull base in older cattle.

Livestock Weather Safety Index

A biometeorological matrix combining dry bulb temperature and relative humidity to classify thermal stress hazards during animal transport into Alert, Danger, and Emergency categories.

The 28-Hour Rule (United States Code 49)

A federal statutory regulation requiring that livestock transported interstate by ground or rail be unloaded after $28$ consecutive hours of confinement for at least $5$ hours of rest, water, and food.