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Sow lameness

In pigs, as in other animals, the term "lameness" refers to an abnormal gait. The cause of lameness in pigs may be musculoskeletal, neurological, or integumentary in origin, and may be of traumatic, infectious, nutritional, or developmental etiology. Affected pigs may be visibly limping, unable to rise, or simply less inclined to move to feed and water troughs; swollen joints or hoof lesions may also be apparent. Examination for lameness in pigs involves comprehensive evaluation of the facility and herd, as well as the affected individual animals. Diagnostics include necropsy, nutritional analysis, and infectious disease testing. Given the nature of production medicine, treatment for lameness in pigs is most often directed at an appropriate management change to prevent additional cases, rather than treatment of the individual animal. Lameness is a perennial problem in swine production worldwide. Although lameness can be caused by congenital or developmental abnormalities, most lameness in production animals is due to pain associated with infections, trauma-related injuries, or underlying metabolic diseases. For that reason, lameness has become an area of focus for swine farm audits of animal well-being. Lameness is also an economic issue, because it is likely to affect the viability, growth, or reproduction of pigs. Lameness in a herd can negatively impact the overall supply of pigs through the production pipeline; eg, if breeding stock is lost because of lameness, farrowing targets may not be met, or if younger pigs are affected by musculoskeletal disease, their growth rates, and therefore time to finishing, may be prolonged.
Stelios Kouroupides
Kalorizou M. & Kouroupides S.O.E.
Introduction: Hoof lesions, which are very common in modern sows, were associated with high risk of early culling and compromised welfare of sows. Some hoof lesions were also associated with decreased litter weight, increased pre-weaning piglet mortality and higher odds of stillborn and crushed piglets. Evidently, if hoof lesions negatively affect not only sow longevity but also the important reproductive parameters which determine the utilisation of breeding herd’s...
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Dr. Steve Pollmann
DSP Consulting LLC
Steve Pollmann (independent consultant, DSP Consulting) discusses housing, weaning age, heat stress and sow mortality rates, among other aspects, in this Engormix interview....
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Introduction: According to Danish regulations gilts and sows must be housed in groups from weaning until 7 days before expected farrowing. Mixing sows both after weaning and after mating may/will impair reproduction results and increase prevalence of lameness. A Danish study shows that approximately 90 % of medical treatments in gestation are attributed to lameness. The aim of the current study was to reduce the frequency of gilts and sows being treated for lameness in the...
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Theo Geudeke
GD Animal Health
Introduction: Since 2001 GD Animal Health in the Netherlands runs a monitoring system on pig health. One pillar of this system is the recording of all telephonic questions concerning health issues. Since 2013 lameness turned out to be the main subject of these questions. A detailed telephonic survey in 2014 revealed that most of the questions on lameness concerned finisher pigs between 3 and 5 months of age. The symptoms reported were acute lameness in more than one leg and...
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Karen Wedekind
Karen Wedekind and 1 more
Novus
Karen Wedekind, Comparative nutrition manager at Novus International, highlights the benefits of using Organic trace minerals as an important factor that can positively impact bone and cartilage development in monogastrics...
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Inger Lise Andersen
Fôrtek- Norwegian University of Life Science
Maternal investment, sow behavioural needs and criteria for housing design The reproductive strategy of producing large broods and smaller young, resulting in a higher mortality rate, fits the picture of domestic pigs remarkably well (reviewed by Drake et al. 2008). The average litter size in domestic sows is around 12 to 14 piglets, but litters of above 20 piglets are not uncommon even in gilts, although the number of functional teats is usually between 14...
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COMMON PROBLEMS IN BREEDING SOWS The high prolificacy of modern genetic lines provides extraordinary productivity, but at the same time increases the frequency of problems which, if not managed properly, will increase the culling rate. Among the main challenges we can...
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Mashilo Phosa
Chemuniqué
The South African pig industry is no different from other pig industry in the world with regard to sow lameness. More than 76% of the sows assessed for lesion scoring had a lesion in more than one claw, which in turn can lead to high prevalence of lameness depending on the severity of the lesions. Of the 701 sows assessed at the different abattoirs, sows within score 1 were 51% and with increasing severity lesion i.e. score 2&3 having, 26% of the sows were...
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Liesbet Pluym
Liesbet Pluym and 1 more
Ghent University
Ghent University
Implications Knowledge on the economic impact of claw lesions and lameness helps to understand how both the diseases influence economic losses, and indicates how these problems should best be addressed. The fact that the prevalence of lameness varies throughout the reproductive cycle and peaks after sows were housed in the insemination stable is crucial for risk factor analysis. Furthermore, it implicates that focus on...
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Longer lifetime – better economy Only 20% of all sows achieve an optimal lifetime production Increasing the number of litters per year sow from 3.5 to 4.5 increases the earnings per year sow by Euro 30 Almost 60% of all cullings are due to leg problems Culling means lower sales income and higher costs (culling)  Pia Conradsen, specialist veterinarian from Svinevet,...
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Liesbet Pluym
Ghent University
Ghent University
Claw and leg lesions in sows may cause lameness, and have detrimental effects on animal welfare. In the European Welfare Quality® protocol, lameness is one of the animal-based measures to assess animal welfare (Welfare Quality® consortium, 2009). Besides welfare problems, economic losses due to lameness are also an important concern for pig producers. A high prevalence of sows with claw and leg problems means more labour for the farmer and increases the costs of...
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Hans Aae
Vilofoss
Lameness among sows may be and must be regarded as a loss-making disease. Lameness is not a common state for sows, and several international studies indicate losses due to lameness amounting to 50 - 100 Euros per sow. According to professor John Deen, University of Minnesota,  loose sows increase the risk of lameness by a factor 25; this will consequently increase the lameness problematic in European pig production due to the fact that all sows as...
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Osteochondrosis is a disease that is known for causing loose fragments in joints. In spite of the disease being extremely common in Norwegian horses, the causes and mechanisms behind it are not well known. Recently, veterinary surgeon Kristin Olstad of the Equine Clinic at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science completed a PhD which concluded that failure of the blood supply to growth cartilage was a cause of osteochondrosis in horses.  Osteochondrosis is a...
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Understanding lameness means that we need to understand what happens to the sow after a lameness event starts. Deen recently followed 700 sows entering the farrowing crate. Each sow was evaluated for lameness and compared the subsequent performance for the year. They found that sows were culled at a higher rate if they were lame. This is often recorded in the records as the proportion of sows that are culled due to lameness. They also found that sows were not culled due to lameness,...
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Claw health in pig herds is an overlooked factor, which has a great influence on welfare and which may be the cause of increased number of culled sows. Besides lame sow has a lower productivity. Vit-Omic is proven to have a positive effect on lameness and performance. Historically speaking there has not been any focus on claw health in pig production. Often farmers tried to solve leg problems by applying extra phosphorus – and mostly without any effect. If there would be focus on the...
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International Collaboration to Discuss Lameness Identification and Prevention Zinpro Corporation has announced the world’s first symposium on sow lameness will take place in Minneapolis, Minn., on April 2-4, 2008. The three-day event, hosted by Zinpro, will bring together leading swine researchers, veterinarians, nutritionists and animal scientists from around the globe, including members of the FeetFirst™ ...
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Feet and leg unsoundness is an on-going concern for the swine industry, and has been back in the spotlight lately with concerns expressed by show pig exhibitors debating the issue of feeding Paylean TM . This article reviews causes of structural unsoundness and offers suggestions for improving it. Some of the information is available in more detail in Pork Industry Handbook 101, which also contains several excellent diagrams that illustrate conformation differences. Structural...
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The world’s first symposium on sow lameness will take place in Minneapolis on April 2-4, 2008. It is an invitation-only event, organised by Zinpro Performance Minerals, bringing together an expert international panel of nutritionists, veterinarians, and animal scientists to share their knowledge with the swine industry. Attendees from 21 countries are expected. Sow Lameness Project In 2004, the company joined with other individuals in the industry to...
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