ABSTRACT
Meat consumption has increased mainly due to higher income and urbanization, combined with population growth. This resulted in higher and better animal production. Every person involved in the meat production chain, starting with the animal producer to those dealing with transport until workers at the slaughterhouse, is responsible to producing high-quality meat linked to humane handling and sacri‘ce of animals (Knowles and Warris 2000). For this reason, animal welfare is of most importance. A wide variety of factors affect meat quality; they can be classi‘ed into ante-and postmortem (Rosmini 2006). This chapter deals with the main factors affecting meat quality and animal welfare in several meat species during handling prior to slaughtering.
