Evaluación ante y peri-morte de sacrificio de cobayos, sometidos al aturdimiento con narcosis de Co2.

Abstract

Animal welfare care starts at birth and ends with death. Some studies show high stress levels in guinea pigs slaughtered in conventional ways. This research aimed to compare the physiological and visualization of stress during guinea pig slaughter as an indicator of welfare during death by measuring eleven dependent variables before, during, and after slaughter, as well as quantifying cortisol and glucose variation immediately after slaughter, under controlled conditions and maintaining a standard anteand peri mortem protocol. This study was carried out with 45 slaughtered animals, comparing previous narcosis with CO2, and versus the conventional method, in addition to the variables of 12-hour fasting and non-fasting under a 2x2 factorial design. It was proven that CO2 is a tool capable of suppressing most signs of stress, such as defecation and eye blinking, confirming this by using the probabilistic Odds Ratio test. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that fasted animals could suppress blinking, although they showed a more significant presence of feces during slaughter. Concerning cortisol, those that were not stunned doubled (p<0.05) the levels of this hormone, concluding that the use of CO2 for guinea pigs stunning reduces stress conditions compared to conventional slaughter, in addition to presenting a lower average death rate and higher exsanguination, thereby improving animal welfare. Keywords: Peri mortem, ante mortem, stunning, slaughtering, CO2, narcosis.