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Show K'Lit,. Sitticitiorbl j Rough handling of livestock en-, i route to market is causing losses of millions of dollars to owners and to I . the livestock and meat packing industry in-dustry in general, according to reports re-ports compiled by National Livestock j Loss Prevention board. Many ofj J these losses could be avoided by morel careful handling while stock is being : loaded in cars and in transit, it is i believed. Actual losses suffered by livestock owners through death loss and ap- j parent crippling of animals is onlyi a part of the total loss, the survey j reveals. Many bruises that are not apparent when livestock is unloaded at the slaughtering plant cut heavily into the carcasses and often cause a reduction in the grade and quality j of cuts and carcasses. j The survey shows that of 87 million mil-lion animals shipped for commercial slaughter in 1933, more than 72,000 died in transit and nearly 109,000 were crippled, which means that at least two animals in every thousand received serious injuries, not including includ-ing the additional thousands damaged damag-ed through bru;sing. The year 1933 was taken as the last typical year because in 1934 losses were abnormally abnor-mally high because of the large number num-ber of drouth-weakened animals. Injuries to hogs were the most frequent, and those to cattle the least frequent. One of the principal reasons rea-sons given for losses is the practice of loading as many animals as possible pos-sible into a tra'n or truck, where I freight rates are based upon a mini mum weight. Many instances - are cited where sheep smothered to death 1 because of overloading in trucks,! while in other cases, sheep and hogsj were injured because in unloading trucks animals were permitted to i jump to the ground. Lack of cleats' on truck floors permits a certain! amount of sliding, which causes injuries. in-juries. The National Livestock Loss Prevention Pre-vention board was organized last December De-cember in the interests of stockmen, railroads, insurance companies, packers, pack-ers, stock yard companies and others involved in the transportation of livestock. live-stock. The writer is a director representing repre-senting the Pacific coast in the work that is being done by the board to help cut down unnecessary losses in transporting livestock. The problem of the board personnel person-nel at this time is to study causes of livestock losses in transit and make suggestions that will go towards to-wards reducing such losses. For many years, stock yard companies have exercised care in handling livestock, live-stock, insisting that employees and yard handlers generally desist from the use of clubs or sticks in driving j animals through the alleys as a means of preventing bruises. Successful Suc-cessful efforts have been made in the yards to prevent yardmen from hur-j hur-j rying stock through the alleys as animals may fall and become crippled crip-pled or bruised. The Los Angeles yards become one of the first large markets to eliminate rough corners alleys and to remove all obstructions which might cause bru'ses. Stockmen themselves might eliminate elim-inate many bruises and losses from crippling by greater care in loading trucks and stock cars. |