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Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance

BACKGROUND: Delaying pigs from advancing through the production stages could have a negative impact on their health and performance. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible implications of delaying pigs from the normal production flow on pig health and performance in a farrow-to-...

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Autores principales: Calderón Díaz, Julia Adriana, Diana, Alessia, Boyle, Laura Ann, Leonard, Finola C., McElroy, Máire, McGettrick, Shane, Moriarty, John, García Manzanilla, Edgar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497354/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28690865
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40813-017-0061-6
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author Calderón Díaz, Julia Adriana
Diana, Alessia
Boyle, Laura Ann
Leonard, Finola C.
McElroy, Máire
McGettrick, Shane
Moriarty, John
García Manzanilla, Edgar
author_facet Calderón Díaz, Julia Adriana
Diana, Alessia
Boyle, Laura Ann
Leonard, Finola C.
McElroy, Máire
McGettrick, Shane
Moriarty, John
García Manzanilla, Edgar
author_sort Calderón Díaz, Julia Adriana
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Delaying pigs from advancing through the production stages could have a negative impact on their health and performance. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible implications of delaying pigs from the normal production flow on pig health and performance in a farrow-to-finish commercial farm with a self-declared All-In/All-Out (AIAO) management. RESULTS: Three flows of pigs were defined, flow 1 (i.e. pigs that followed the normal production flow; 8 weeks in the nursery stage, 4 weeks in the growing stage and 8 weeks in the finisher stage), flow 2 (i.e. pigs delayed 1 week from advancing to the next production stage) and flow 3 (i.e. pigs delayed >1 week from advancing to the next production stage). Flow 3 included higher proportions of pigs from first parity sows and of lighter birth weights. When the 3 flows were matched by parity and birth weight, pigs in flow 2 were 3.8 times more likely to be lame prior to slaughter compared with pigs in flow 1. Similarly, pigs in flow 3 were more likely to be lame prior to slaughter, 4.5 times more likely to present pleurisy, 3.3 times more like to present pericarditis and 4.3 times more likely to have their heart condemned at slaughter compared with pigs in flow 1. Additionally, carcasses from pigs in flow 3 were 10 kg lighter compared with carcasses from pigs in flow 1. CONCLUSION: Delayed pigs were more affected by disease and were lighter at slaughter. Besides animal welfare issues, these findings could represent considerable economic loses for pig producers. In practice, delaying pigs from the normal production flow translates into higher feeding costs, increase number of days to slaughter and increased labour requirements reducing production efficiency for the pig operation. In farrow-to-finish farms an ‘all-forward’ policy (i.e. no pig is left behind from stage to stage and a split marketing approach is applied when sending pigs to slaughter) might be more easily adhered to.
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spelling pubmed-54973542017-07-07 Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance Calderón Díaz, Julia Adriana Diana, Alessia Boyle, Laura Ann Leonard, Finola C. McElroy, Máire McGettrick, Shane Moriarty, John García Manzanilla, Edgar Porcine Health Manag Research BACKGROUND: Delaying pigs from advancing through the production stages could have a negative impact on their health and performance. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible implications of delaying pigs from the normal production flow on pig health and performance in a farrow-to-finish commercial farm with a self-declared All-In/All-Out (AIAO) management. RESULTS: Three flows of pigs were defined, flow 1 (i.e. pigs that followed the normal production flow; 8 weeks in the nursery stage, 4 weeks in the growing stage and 8 weeks in the finisher stage), flow 2 (i.e. pigs delayed 1 week from advancing to the next production stage) and flow 3 (i.e. pigs delayed >1 week from advancing to the next production stage). Flow 3 included higher proportions of pigs from first parity sows and of lighter birth weights. When the 3 flows were matched by parity and birth weight, pigs in flow 2 were 3.8 times more likely to be lame prior to slaughter compared with pigs in flow 1. Similarly, pigs in flow 3 were more likely to be lame prior to slaughter, 4.5 times more likely to present pleurisy, 3.3 times more like to present pericarditis and 4.3 times more likely to have their heart condemned at slaughter compared with pigs in flow 1. Additionally, carcasses from pigs in flow 3 were 10 kg lighter compared with carcasses from pigs in flow 1. CONCLUSION: Delayed pigs were more affected by disease and were lighter at slaughter. Besides animal welfare issues, these findings could represent considerable economic loses for pig producers. In practice, delaying pigs from the normal production flow translates into higher feeding costs, increase number of days to slaughter and increased labour requirements reducing production efficiency for the pig operation. In farrow-to-finish farms an ‘all-forward’ policy (i.e. no pig is left behind from stage to stage and a split marketing approach is applied when sending pigs to slaughter) might be more easily adhered to. BioMed Central 2017-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5497354/ /pubmed/28690865 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40813-017-0061-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Calderón Díaz, Julia Adriana
Diana, Alessia
Boyle, Laura Ann
Leonard, Finola C.
McElroy, Máire
McGettrick, Shane
Moriarty, John
García Manzanilla, Edgar
Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
title Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
title_full Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
title_fullStr Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
title_full_unstemmed Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
title_short Delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
title_sort delaying pigs from the normal production flow is associated with health problems and poorer performance
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497354/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28690865
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40813-017-0061-6
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