Abstract:

When livestock and poultry undergo loading and unloading, transportation and recovery, lairage, fasting and
stunning procedures before slaughter, the animals will face many stressors, such as hunger, bumpy, crowded and other
objective factors, as well as panic, stress and other psychological factors. Most of the stress factors come from the preslaughter
process is detrimental to meat quality, but fasting before transportation and pre-slaughter resting may have some
beneficial effects on meat quality. Both electrical stunning and CO2 stunning are often used in mechanized slaughter process,
but CO2 stunning is less researched and applied in China. This paper summarizes the latest achievements in understanding
the effects of pre-slaughter transportation, lairage, fasting and stunning ways on meat quality with the aim of providing a
reference for producing high-quality meat and related research.

Key words: transportation, lairage, fasting, stunning, meat quality