Fatores associados à fratura de coluna de suínos abatidos sob inspeção sanitária oficial

Abstract

Pig farming has great importance in the national and international economy, and Brazil occupies the fourth place in the world ranking of pork production. Given this importance, it is essential that the production and slaughter processes follow standardized steps and ensure the production of good quality carcasses. In this sense, failures throughout the production and processing cycle can cause fractures, trauma and injuries that compromise the final product. Among these, spine fracture is considered one of the main causes of economic losses in slaughter. Thus, the objective of the present study was to evaluate variables that may influence the occurrence of spine fractures in pigs slaughtered in a slaughterhouse. The present study was conducted in the city of Uberlândia - MG, where data were collected from 1,651 animals in seven visits from August to November 2021. In the visits, the following information was collected: amperage and voltage of the electrodes used in stunning, length and carcass weight, and amount and location of spine fractures. Subsequently, the data were transferred to an Excel spreadsheet and compared using the Chi-Square test with 95% significance (GraphPad Prisma9). The results showed that 17.3% of the pigs had fractures in the vertebral column, with the caudal region being the one with the highest number of fractures (97.9%). It was observed that, during stunning, the animals that presented fractures were submitted to a higher average of amperage (+0.02A) and voltage (+3.8V). In relation to length and weight, the animals without fracture were the ones that presented higher average results, with a difference of 3.18 cm and 3.33 kg, respectively. Therefore, it was possible to observe that higher amperage and voltage values and lower carcass weight and length were related to the occurrence of swine spine fractures.