Important physiological needs

Hunger

If they have possibility, our production animals eat regularly and during a large portion of the time they are awake. The exception being the mink, which is a predator and therefore eats at a few occasions and rests most of the day and night. The body absorbs and transforms sugar and fats in the feed to energy. Energy and various nutrients are essential to maintain life-sustaining functions (breathing, blood circulation, brain activity, and digestion), for struggle, flight, and foodsearch, for growth and propagation (which gives us meat, milk, and eggs), and to make the body able to fight diseases and heal wounds. Energy that is not used is stored in the body as fat.

When blood sugar is low and the stomach is empty, signals are sent to the brain that increase the craving for food; the animal becomes hungry. If the animal cannot ingest enough food, the hunger remains and increases, with a sense of diffuse emptiness and dulling ache in the stomach region, while the energy reserves of the body begin to empty. After a while the hunger evolves to starvation, whereby the animal can experience painful relapses of stomach contractions. The animals lose weight and the production decreases, they have a higher risk of contracting illnesses, become dull and apathetic, and can eventually die. Lack of food, not being able to eat what you need, is a stressful experience for the animal.

Several factors influence how well our production animals succeed in relinquishing their hunger. Especially high producing animals, such as dairy cows and fast-growing broilers and turkeys, need to ingest enough energy while the feed should be adapted to the species’ natural preconditions (i.e. a good balance between concentrates and roughage, and enough quantity of fodder). The feeding system must be made so that all animals can get enogh fodder regardless of pecking order, age,sex, and health condition. Consideration has to be taken to the animals’ natural food search and eating behaviour, so that stress, aggressivity, and behavioural disorders during the feeding are avoided.

Hunger

Equine and bovine animals

Hunger is a psysiological need that has to be catered to also at the slaughterhouse. Photo: Lotta Berg, SLU

At the slaugterhouse also have to be taken into consideration the factors that infuence the animals’ hunger and how it can be relinquished.

Also consider that the animals may already be hungry at arrival, because of long transports.

You can read more about the feeding of the animals at the slaughterhouse in the paragraph about handling.

Poultry

By law poultry may be without feed no more than 12 hours. It is important that the leirage time at the slaughterhouse is not long, because it is barely possible to feed poultry in the the transport containers. In case poultry are not held in transport containers they can be fed in their confinements when needed. Consider that the birds may be hungry already at arrival, because of long transports.

You can read more about feeding of poultry at the slaughterhouse in the paragraph about Handling.

Farmed game

Farmed game should have access to enough grazing, so that they do not have to support fed during the grazing season. During the winter the animals should be fed in a way that does not make the fodder polluted, and the fodder should not be placed directly on the ground. By using mobile devices for fodder, the ground at the feeding spot will not be trampled. The animals should have plenty of space at the feeding spot to avoid that younger animals and those lower down the social order are rejected from the spot. Every animal in the enclosure should have possibility to eat in peace and quiet. During winter the animals should have free acess to fodder! It is not recommended to use feeding racks for enclosures with large herds, since young animals are rarely allowed to eat. A common and recommended way of feeding is to use a tractor-pulled so called ”balrivare???” that spreads the fodder in broad strings and for longer distances,which gives animals of all ages and pecking order ability to feed.Fallow deer and red deer

Deer are generally selective about food. They choose the food that is most tasty, compared to other food. What and how much they eat is also highly dependant on the season of the year. At wintertime the deer’s metabolism is low and the need for fodder is lower, as well as the selectivity. The highest intake of food is during spring and early summer, when plants are the most rich in protein. During heat the deer (males) eat little or no food at all, which leads to significant weight loss and woresened body condition.

The fallow deer grazes 18-20 hours per day.
Photo: Jonas Malmsten.