scoring tail damage in pigs an evaluation based on recordings at swedish slaughterhouses得分在猪尾巴损伤评估基于录音在瑞典的屠宰场.pdfVIP

Keeling et al. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2012, 54:32 /content/54/1/32 RESEARCH Open Access Scoring tail damage in pigs: an evaluation based on recordings at Swedish slaughterhouses 1* 1 1 2 Linda J Keeling , Anna Wallenbeck , Anne Larsen and Nils Holmgren Abstract Background: There is increasing interest in recording tail damage in pigs at slaughter to identify problem farms for advisory purposes, but also for benchmarking within and between countries as part of systematic monitoring of animal welfare. However, it is difficult to draw conclusions when comparing prevalence’s between studies and countries partly due to differences in management (e.g. differences in tail docking and enrichment routines) and partly due to differences in the definition of tail damage. Methods: Tail damage and tail length was recorded for 15,068 pigs slaughtered during three and four consecutive days at two slaughterhouses in Sweden. Tail damage was visually scored according to a 6-point scale and tail length was both visually scored according to a 5-point scale and recorded as tail length in centimetres for pigs with injured or shortened tails. Results: The total prevalence of injury or shortening of the tail was 7.0% and 7.2% in slaughterhouse A and B, respectively. When only considering pigs with half or less of the tail left, these percentages were 1.5% and 1.9%, which is in line with the prevalence estimated from the routine recordings at slaughter in Sweden. A higher percentage of males had injured and/or shortened tails, and males had more severely bitten tails than females. Conclusions: While the current method to record tail damage in Sweden was found to be reliable as a method to identify problem farms, it clear