Documentation of animal health in organic pig herds

The health of weaned pigs should be described using several information sources to get an overall assessment of the health state in the herd. In this case study four organic pig herds each fattening between 800 and 3500 pigs per year provided data from clinical examination of a sample of animals, pathological findings at slaughter, post weaning mortality and medicine usage in the herd. Clinical symptoms were present in 8 – 18 % of the pigs, and 2 – 6 % of the pigs showed more serious symptoms of disease. At slaughter 10 – 17 % of the pigs got remarks for pathological lesions, primarily liver spots, abscesses and chronic pericarditis. The post weaning mortality varied between herds, while the usage of medicine was rather low in the herds. The herd health status can be aggregated in many ways. A suggestion is made for the four herds. According to this the good health state is achieved in herds combining a modest medicine usage with a low level of disease, measured by low prevalence of clinical symptoms, low number of remarks at slaughter and low mortality