2011 AND 2012 EARLY CAREERS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS: Farm and pig factors affecting welfare during the marketing process1,2

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to review the scientific literature to identify on-farm factors that contribute to market weight pig transportation losses. Transportation of market weight pigs is an essential element to the multisite pork production model used in the United States. In 2011 alone, approximately 111 million market weight pigs were transported from the finishing site to the abattoir. For pigs, the marketing process can present a combination of potentially novel, physical, and/or unfamiliar experiences that can be stressful. If the pig cannot cope with these sequential and additive stressors, then an increased rate of transportation losses could occur with a detrimental effect on pork carcass value. Current yearly estimates for transport losses are 1 million pigs (1%). A variety of market weight pig and farm factors have been reported to detrimentally affect transportation losses. By understanding how pigs interact with their environment during marketing, researchers, producers, and personnel at the abattoir may begin to identify, prioritize, and attempt to minimize or eliminate these stressors. This process will ultimately decrease transportation losses, improve pork quality, and increase profitability.aBtsraCt: The objective of this paper is to review the scientific literature to identify on-farm factors that contribute to market weight pig transportation losses. Transportation of market weight pigs is an essential element to the multisite pork production model used in the United States. In 2011 alone, approximately 111 million market weight pigs were transported from the finishing site to the abattoir. For pigs, the marketing process can present a combination of potentially novel, physical, and/ or unfamiliar experiences that can be stressful. If the pig cannot cope with these sequential and additive stressors, then an increased rate of transportation losses could occur with a detrimental effect on pork carcass value. Current yearly estimates for transport losses are 1 million pigs (1%). A variety of market weight pig and farm factors have been reported to detrimentally affect transportation losses. By understanding how pigs interact with their environment during marketing, researchers, producers, and personnel at the abattoir may begin to identify, prioritize, and attempt to minimize or eliminate these stressors. This process will ultimately decrease transportation losses, improve pork quality, and increase profitability.

Factores de riesgo asociados con la presencia de cerdos fatigados durante el transporte y sus implicaciones en el pH muscular alto

“…La mayoría de los cerdos de ceba son transportados en camiones desde la granja hasta la planta de sacrificio, donde gran parte de ellos llega y se procesa sin incidentes. Sin embargo, un pequeño porcentaje de animales mueren y otros presentan dificultad para caminar durante el desembarque, lo que se conoce comúnmente como «cerdos no ambulatorios» (Sutherland et al, 2009a;Johnson et al, 2013). La presencia de cerdos no ambulatorios o que mueren en cualquier etapa durante el proceso de comercialización se denominan «pérdidas por transporte» (Berry et al, 2012).…”

“…Los cerdos fatigados exhiben un comportamiento alterado caracterizado por la presencia de dificultad respiratoria (jadeo), decoloración de la piel, o ambos. Si el estrés no se elimina o si se encuentran factores estresantes adicionales, el cerdo se mostrará reacio a moverse, con vocalizaciones anormales, desarrollo de temblores musculares o manifestará una combinación de indicadores de estrés (Ritter et al, 2009a;Johnson et al, 2013). Los cerdos fatigados presentan acidosis metabólica como respuesta al manejo y al transporte (Ritter et al, 2006), con-dición que puede dar como resultado una reducción de 0.5 unidades del pH sanguíneo y aumento de la temperatura corporal de 1.0-2.5 °C (Aradom et al, 2012).…”

Transport Fitness of Cull Sows and Boars: A Comparison of Different Guidelines on Fitness for Transport

“…A survey by researchers at Iowa State University at fifteen pig buying stations that purchase both market weight pigs and sows and boars showed that sows and boars were 86% of the non-ambulatory fatigued animals and 73% of the lame animals [17]. In the total population, which included market weight pigs, fatigued pigs equaled 16% and lame pigs only 5% [2]. Sows and boars were 82% of the animals with a body condition score of 1 and only 4% of the total population had a body condition score of 1 [17].…”

“…Numerous papers have been written that cover market pig welfare during transportation [1,2,3,4,5] but little attention has been given to cull sows and boar fitness to transport. Cull sow and boar handling and transport can be quite variable in that standard practices have not been adopted.…”

Core body temperature does not cool down with skin surface temperature during recovery at room temperature after acute heat stress exposure

“…Due to a lack of functional sweat glands (Fox et. al., 2013;Johnson et. al., 2013;Warriss et al, 2006), pigs are particularly susceptible to the effects of environmentally-induced heat stress (HS), which can result in production losses as well as morbidity and mortality (Johnson et al, 2015).…”