The Impact of Grouping on Skin Lesions and Meat Quality of Pig Carcasses

In practice, unfamiliar pigs are frequently mixed prior to loading in order to obtain groups ofuniformweightandtoadjustthegroupsizetothedimensionsofthetrailercompartments. Mixing pigs induces aggressive interactions to establish a new social rank. Fighting results in skin lesions and pre-slaughter stress and, in turn, reduced meat quality. A study was performed to compare the effect of non-regrouping and regrouping at fattening (at 80 kg and kept till slaughter), loading and lairage. Atotalof1332pigswereincludedover30transportsfromonepigfarmtooneslaughterhouse (110 km). Skin lesions were determined on 1314 carcasses. Meat quality was measured on 620 pigs. The non-regrouped pigs had fewer skin lesions and better meat quality than the pigs regrouped at loading or in lairage. Pigs mixed at 80 kg at the farm had, in general, a comparable amount of skin lesions and comparable meat quality as the non-mixed group. If mixing is unavoidable, due to large within-group weight variations, mixing at 80 kg can be an alternative to reduce skin lesions at slaughter and to optimise meat quality.

Jaar van publicatie:2020

BOF-keylabel:ja

IOF-keylabel:ja

BOF-publication weight:6

CSS-citation score:2

Authors from:Private, Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open