Transporting livestock to an abattoir has been shown
to be a highly stressful and exhausting period. Bruising is
a constant threat that has an economic consequence when
carcasses are discriminated against or, in the extreme, condemned.
The 24-h period of deprivation of feed and water that
gave rise to the losses reported by Greenwood et al. (2008)
would be a typical period for transporting the animals followed
by waiting period at the abattoir. In many countries,
the waiting period is obligatory to allow the animal to
recover from the effects of transporting, principally the
re-establishment of glycogen levels. The notion of transporting
has many facets that affect the animal’s physiology
and consequently the carcass and meat quality. Transport
on open vehicles in very hot circumstances can be
highly stressful. A liveweight loss of 3.7–7% was recorded
in goats transported for 2 h on an open vehicle at an ambient
temperature of 37 ◦C (Kadim et al., 2006). The stress
endured by the goats was shown by higher plasma cortisol,
adrenaline, nor-adrenaline, and dopamine concentrations
than the non-transported control group. Transportation
stress affect pHu and expressed juices, percentage cooking
loss and shear force. Despite the increased shear force
values, sarcomere lengths were lower. The colour parameters
lightness (L-*), redness (a*) and yellowness (b*) were
negatively affected. There was no significant breed effect
between Batina, Dhofari and Jabal Akdhar goats and no
breed x treatment interaction.