Prevalences of welfare-related lesions at post-mortem meat-inspection in Danish sows

We investigated the prevalences and intercorrelations of all daily meat-inspection recordings at four Danish sow abattoirs in the year 2000 from 23,794 sows coming from 207 sow or farrow-to-finisher herds. The meat-inspection data were obtained from databases at the Danish Bacon and Meat Council (DBMC). Prevalences generally were low-but large herd-to-herd variations were seen. Despite low prevalences, many slaughtered sows had recordings which raise welfare concerns. Intercorrelations between the meat-inspection recordings were evaluated using exploratory factor analysis describing underlying latent factors related to health and welfare problems within herds. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.