Untersuchungen zum Auftreten von Hilfsschleimbeuteln bei bayerischen Mastschweinen aus konventioneller Haltung

The study aimed at assessing the occurrence of adventitious bursitis in Bavarian fattening pigs with regard to prevalence, influencing factors and heritability. We analysed data from 9.851 pigs which were performance tested and slaughtered at the two Bavarian performance testing stations in Grub and Schwarzenau. All pigs were raised conventionally on slatted floors. At slaughter, each leg was scored on a scale from 0 (no findings) to 3 (severe bursitis with inflammatory skin damage). Overall, there were findings in 83% of the pigs with considerable differences between breeds (German Landrace: 72%; Pietrain: 90%). The majority of cases (75%) showed a score of 1 and only less than 1% of the findings were severe (score 3). Hind legs were affected more often and more severely than the forelegs. The occurrence of bursitis was influenced unfavourably by several performance traits, especially by lean meat percentage, lean to fat ratio, carcase length and age at slaughter. The heritability of the average score of findings ranged from 0.27 in progeny of Pietrain boars to 0.35 in animals of dam lines and their crosses.