Prevalences of welfare-related lesions at post-mortem meat-inspection in Danish sows. • Arctic Health
Prevalences of welfare-related lesions at post-mortem meat-inspection in Danish sows.
Prev Vet Med. 2004 Jul 16;64(2-4):123-31
A. Cleveland-Nielsen
A K Ersbøll
Department of Animal Science and Animal Health, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Grønnegaardsvej 8, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark. acln@fdir.dk
Pressure Ulcer - epidemiology - veterinary
We investigated the prevalences and intercorrelations of all daily meat-inspection recordings at four Danish sow abattoirs in the year 2000 from 23,794 sows coming from 207 sow or farrow-to-finisher herds. The meat-inspection data were obtained from databases at the Danish Bacon and Meat Council (DBMC). Prevalences generally were low--but large herd-to-herd variations were seen. Despite low prevalences, many slaughtered sows had recordings which raise welfare concerns. Intercorrelations between the meat-inspection recordings were evaluated using exploratory factor analysis describing underlying latent factors related to health and welfare problems within herds.