Stiffness Isn’t Normal: A Field Perspective on Lameness in Grow-Finish Pigs
Lameness is the No. 1 cause of mortality in mid- to late-finishing stage pigs, Kathleen Wood, DVM, Christensen Farms, said in a recent webinar sponsored by the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) and American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV).
Wood said farms that normally had 10% to 25% stiffness in grow-finish pigs grew to 25% to 40% stiffness this year. She attributes the increase to a variety of factors including infectious arthritis, injury or trauma, as well as leg conformation problems or defects. She also attributed some of the increase in incidence to increased awareness of stiffness after a return to closer observation as barn visits resumed after a lag due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When coronavirus hit, we were social distancing and barn time took a hit,” Wood said. “Going back in the barns now, the stiffness has been a lot worse than it was before.”
Solving the issue of lameness requires veterinarians to be in barns, observing animals, as well as performing necropsies to define the cause of lameness, she said.
Wood highlighted some of the key issues she’s seeing out in the field when it comes to grow-finish lameness.
1. Hidden mortality.
Continuous mild mortality doesn’t raise red flags, Wood said. Lameness has been there the whole time.
“Continuous mild mortality doesn’t raise red flags like an acute PRRS outbreak. We don’t feel like we automatically need to react and go treat it,” she said. “It’s there but it doesn’t alarm us at all – it’s accepted. So we need to fix that. We need to start reacting to these lower mortality situations and not just the huge mass mortality events that we see with disease outbreaks.”
2. Injectable treatments are variable and difficult to accomplish.
Anti-inflammatory injectables are an important treatment, relieving pain and related issues, Wood said. However, use of these anti-inflammatory injectables may be difficult to manage with potential issues revolving around withdrawal times for grow-finish pigs.
“Once we get into the marketing phase, it’s really hard to give an anti-inflammatory,” Wood said. “At the end of the day, our main goal is to make sure our consumer is safe.”
Doing what’s best for the pig and the consumer is a continual balance, she added.
3. Determine the source.
Look upstream. Don’t get stuck in your bubble, she encouraged. Don’t be afraid to look for other possible origins of stiffness/lameness problems in the sow farm, including sow nutrition, sow farm medications and pre-farrow vaccinations.
“Is there an intervention we can do upstream that will make our interventions downstream more effective?” she asked.
4. Communicate with your staff in the field.
Continual training of staff to recognize and properly identify issues is essential, Wood said. It’s important to work from the premise that lameness and stiffness are not part of “normal.”
Terms such as swollen joints or lameness can mean different things from nursery to finishing. Don’t assume everyone is on the same page when it comes to naming these problems in the barn.
In response to these issues, Wood’s team developed a game plan that includes more practitioner field time, more necropsies, more field training and pursuing more diagnostics.
“As a vet team, we committed to more field time to work more closely with service staff,” she said.
They also committed to giving the diagnostic labs more information.
“If you're sending in tissues, give them a detailed history,” Wood said. “Don't just send in tissues and hope that the diagnostic lab is going to rub their crystal ball and be able to tell you ‘Hey, here's exactly what your problem is based on the two clinical signs you gave me.’ Really focus on giving them the story and what you're seeing.”
Necropsy everything, she added, including popping open joints, snapping ribs, and identifying broken bones during routine necropsies versus only in infection/abscess presence.
“Pigs aren’t supposed to be stiff. Don’t accept that as normal” she said. “They aren’t supposed to be in pain when they are walking. So, let’s figure it out and fix it.”
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