Design of a system to determine cattle-hide cleanliness with respect to national specifications

With the amendment of the Administrative Regulation on Food Hygiene 2019 (AVV LmH), the requirements of the EU regulation to only allow clean animals for slaughter were adopted nationally. Annex 3 of the regulation describes a method for assessing the cleanliness of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry delivered for slaughter. In the present work, a concept was developed for implementing the new regulation requirements for determining the cleanliness of slaughter cattle; it was tested in practice in a slaughterhouse with a weekly capacity of 5000 cattle. It comprises the classification of slaughter cattle after stunning but before bleeding into one of three cleanliness categories, the subsequent evaluation and feedback to the primary agricultural producer. Aside from classifying the cleanliness of cattle over the period of one year, the main focus of the present study was to examine seasonal influence, influence of the animal category and influence of the husbandry method and system on hide contamination. Hide contamination is mainly influenced by the direction of cattle use and farm management. According to the study, dairy cows were the animal category with the cleanest animals whereas oxen were the animal category with the most heavily contaminated animals. It was also shown that the cleanliness of cattle is subject to seasonal influences. In the winter and summer months the animals were more contaminated than in autumn and spring. The concept proved to be well implementable in practice and can serve as a basis for improving management at farm level, thereby contributing to the control of related food safety hazards at farm level.

Automated summary

This study developed a concept for determining the cleanliness of slaughter cattle and tested it in practice, focusing on seasonal influences, animal categories, and husbandry methods on hide contamination. The research found that dairy cows were the cleanest animal category, while oxen were the most heavily contaminated. The cleanliness of cattle was found to be influenced by seasonal factors, with winter and summer months showing higher contamination levels.