Association between Enzootic Pneumonia-like Lung Lesions and Carcass Quality and Meat pH Value in Slaughter Pigs

Abstract

Although the prevalence of respiratory diseases in slaughter pigs ranges from 19% to 74% and continues to be an important concern for swine herds worldwide, only a few studies have investigated the relationship between respiratory disease and pork quality. The general aim of this study was to investigate associations between the prevalence and severity of enzootic pneumonia-like lesions in Polish slaughter pigs on different carcass and meat-quality characteristics at the animal and herd levels. The average prevalence of bronchopneumonic lungs with different degrees of lesions was 94.57%. The majority of lesions indicated the acute stage of enzootic pneumonia. Our results indicate a statistically significant interaction between the mean weight of carcasses depending on the extent of the lesions (p = 0.04) at the animal level. The correlation between meatiness and severity of lung lesions was r = −0.25 (p = 0.00). The correlation between the extent of lung lesions and pH45 value was r = −0.17 (p = 0.005) on the animal level and r = −0.63 (p = 0.017) at the herd level. This implies that lung lesions in slaughter pigs negatively influence not only animal health and welfare, but also carcass quality.

Impact of Porcine Enzootic Pneumonia and Pleuropneumonia lesions on Carcass Weight and Meatiness: Quantitative Insights from a Mixed-Model Analysis

“…Our productive analysis revealed that CVPC and dorso-caudal pleurisy could cause substantial weight losses in carcass weight, speci cally 2.77 kg and 2.29 kg in animals with lesions, respectively. These results are in line with other studies investigating declines in carcass weight associated with lung lesions' severity (19,27,(33)(34)(35). The consistency of these ndings across multiple studies and geographical regions underscores the global signi cance of respiratory health in swine production.…”

“…The mean prevalence of lesions observed in our study was 23.86% for CVPC and 15.46% for pleurisy. These gures are lower than those reported in previous studies conducted in Poland, where a 45.10% prevalence of macroscopic lung lesions for CVPC at the slaughterhouse was observed (19). However, our study's prevalence falls within the range reported for different European countries, which varies from 19-74%, depending on the source (13,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25).…”