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Health and welfare of organic pigs in Europe assessed with animal-based parameters

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Abstract

Organic pig farming aims at maintaining a high health and welfare state of the animals through appropriate housing, management and feeding. Better knowledge of health and welfare indicators should help to identify critical points and hence to improve health and welfare as well as performance of organic pigs. This paper describes the health and welfare of organic pigs from 101 farms across six EU countries, using selected animal-based parameters from the Welfare Quality® protocol. Parameters were collected in sows, suckling and weaned piglets in 3 to 20 farms per country. Their assessment was trained before farm visits and inter-observer agreement determined after farm visits. The most prevalent problems identified in sows were thinness (median farm prevalence 18.8 %, range 0–81.0), injuries on the anterior part of the body (15.5 %, 0–66.7), injuries on hind part of body (7.9 %, 0–50), obesity (4.9 %, 0–50.0) and vulva lesions (3.5 %, 0–42.9). In suckling piglets, the median prevalence in terms of groups affected per farm was 0 % for all parameters but ‘> 50 % dirty piglets in group’, for which it was 10 %. Farm prevalence ranged from 0 to 100 % for ‘≥ 1 lame piglet in group’, presence of diarrhoea, and ‘> 50 % dirty piglets in group’. In weaned piglets, the median prevalence in terms of groups affected per farm was 0 % with a range of 0 to 100 % for all parameters. Based on the collected data, body condition, skin and vulva lesions in sows, lameness, diarrhoea and respiratory problems in piglets could be used as management and welfare indicators, with good potential for enhancement through farm improvement schemes like herd health planning. However, some definitions could be improved, especially lameness, diarrhoea and respiratory problems in piglets.

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Acknowledgments

The study was part of the ERA-net CORE Organic project COREPIG (http://corepig.coreportal.org). The authors wish to thank all national funders for their financial support. We would also like to thank Aude Bourgoin and Lene Hegelund for collecting data on farms in France and Denmark as well as all the farmers who participated in the present study. Where required, the national sub-projects were approved according to the national regulations on Ethical approval for research in animals (Sweden: local Ethical Committee for Laboratory Animals in Gothenburg (Göteborgs djurförsöksetiska nämnd, Diary no. 45–2008)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Dörnbergstrasse 25/27, 29223, Celle, Germany

    Sabine Dippel

  2. Division of Livestock Sciences, Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Gregor-Mendel-Strasse 33, 1180, Wien, Austria

    Sabine Dippel, Christine Leeb & Christoph Winckler

  3. Research Unit of Swine Husbandry (CRA-SUI), Agricultural Research Council, 41018, San Cesario sul Panaro, Modena, Italy

    Davide Bochicchio

  4. Department of Animal Science, Aarhus University, Box 50, 8830, Tjele, Denmark

    Marianne Bonde

  5. Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

    Klaas Dietze

  6. Department of Animal Environment and Health, SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), P.O. Box 234, 532 23, Skara, Sweden

    Stefan Gunnarsson & Sofia Wiberg

  7. Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (JTI), Box 7033, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Kristina Lindgren

  8. Department of Animal Nutrition and Animal Health, University of Kassel, Nordbahnhofstr. 1a, 37213, Witzenhausen, Germany

    Klaas Dietze & Albert Sundrum

  9. UMR1348 PEGASE, INRA, 35590, Saint-Gilles, France

    Armelle Prunier

  10. Centre of Development for Outdoor Livestock Production, Marsvej 43, 8960, Randers, Denmark

    Marianne Bonde

Authors
  1. Sabine Dippel
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  2. Christine Leeb
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  3. Davide Bochicchio
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  4. Marianne Bonde
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  5. Klaas Dietze
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  6. Stefan Gunnarsson
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  7. Kristina Lindgren
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  8. Albert Sundrum
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  9. Sofia Wiberg
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  10. Christoph Winckler
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  11. Armelle Prunier
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Correspondence to Sabine Dippel.

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Dippel, S., Leeb, C., Bochicchio, D. et al. Health and welfare of organic pigs in Europe assessed with animal-based parameters. Org. Agr. 4, 149–161 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13165-013-0041-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13165-013-0041-3

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