3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of slaughter method on blood biochemical parameters
Analysis of the sticking blood is one way to obtain information on
the animal's pain as this blood provides information on the type and degree
of stress to which the animal was subjected during stunning and
sticking (Nowak et al., 2007). Changes in biochemical and hematological
constituents of rabbit blood after slaughter are shown in Table 1.
All variables were significantly higher than the basal values (P b 0.05).
Results indicate that the killing of animals was associated with hypercalcemia,
hyperglycemia, lactic acidemia, and increases in hematocrit
and activities of liver enzymes lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), alanine
aminotransferase (ALT), and creatine kinase (CK), leucocytosis and
lymphocytopenia. There was no significant difference on the effects of
both slaughter methods on dehydration in rabbits as evidenced by the
lack of significance difference in total protein, hematocrit and packed
cell volume (Table 1). Both slaughter methods caused hypercalcemia.
However, GS resulted in significantly higher concentration of calcium
ions in blood compared to HS. The killing procedure was generally