Acquisition and evaluation of animal welfare problems in cattle in an animal by-products processing plant in southern Germany

In Germany, hundreds of thousands of cattle are euthanized, killed, or die every year. Due to epidemic control, they have to be disposed of in animal by-products processing plants. Except for the BSE testing (cattle older than 48 months), there is no (regular) observation. Consequently, one can assume that animal welfare problems get overlooked. In the study, 750 cattle were observed within one year to detect indications of pain, suffering, or injuries. Depending on the observed anomalies a classification into five categories was made. As a result 42.5% of all 750 cattle had no signs of welfare problems (category 1 and 2). 57.5% had (prob-ably) animal welfare problems (categories 3-5). In 11.6% (of 750 animals) a patho-logical analysis showed that it was reasonable to assume that there was severe pain, suffering and/or injury with virtual certainty (category 5). In 7.1% (of 750 cattle) this assumption was likely, but there were no free capacities at the competent authorities to do further investigations (category 4.2). 83.6% of 750 cattle showed at least one, on average 4.4 abnormalities. Almost half of the observed animals showed decubitus ulcers, one-third had claw diseases. Although the grievances shown in this study were determined in other previous investigations and regular systematic examinations of all livestock species in processing plants are urgently needed, they still do not take place. A draft law to change the german animal protection law to create the legal basis was not adopted by the German Bunde-stag.