Assessment of the sow body condition in 46 Finnish commercial piglet producing herds

Sow body condition is a critical factor in all stages of the production cycle affecting health, welfare, performance and longevity. Additionally, the direct economic impact on annual costs of unoptimized feeding can be substantial. Therefore, it is important to monitor sows throughout their lifetime to ensure well-being, maximize production efficiency, optimize culling decisions and determine the adequacy of the feeding management practices. Multiple tools are available for the evaluation of the amount of body reserves, particularly muscle and fat. However, the methods differ considerably in reliability, comparability, simplicity and cost-effectiveness. Our aims were to study the health status using body condition scores (BCS) and backfat (BF) levels, and to measure the relationship between these variables using Finnish field data.

In total, 46 farms were enrolled in a cross-sectional, observational study, and visited once by the first author in 2014. Body condition measurements were taken from 26 – 67 females in every herd. Visual BCS was scored on a 1 (thin) to 5 (fat) scale. BF was measured in millimeters by the last rib (P2 method) using an ultrasonic instrument. The data of 2314 sows were scrutinized to describe the body condition traits, to tabulate their correspondence, and to assess the relationship using the Spearman's correlation coefficient.

The results show, that the body condition status of the Finnish sows is at a favorable level. Majority of the sows (51.6 %) had an optimal condition score of 3, and only few individuals were classified as belonging to either the lowest (1.1 %) or the highest (1.1 %) category. BF levels ranged from 5 to 39, and 83.3 % of the sows had the BF of 10-22. Within each body condition class considerable variation in the BF was observed: 1 [5-13], 2 [6-22], 3 [8-27], 4 [12-33] and 5 [17-39]. The general association between the subjective BCS and the objective BF was moderately strong and significant (Spearman's rho=0.74, < 0.0001), however it varied between farms (0.22-0.90).

The study suggests that in order to improve the precision and usefulness of the subjective BCS and to better monitor the fluctuations, the classical five-step rating scale should be divided into sub-categories. In practice, sow´s body condition should be individually evaluated, registered and managed on a regular and continuous basis to ensure appropriate nutrition and minimize herd variation. However, since BCS is not invariably a reliable method, the inclusion of the assessment of BF as an indicator of the fat reserves enhances the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the evaluation of the body condition and composition.

Disclosure of Interest: None Declared.