Comparison between two scoring methods to assess tail damage of docked pig carcasses during postmortem inspection in Ireland
Roberta Maria D'Alessio, Conor G. McAloon, Laura Ann Boyle, Alison Hanlon, Keelin O'Driscoll- General Veterinary
Abstract
Background
Tail inspection in the abattoir is a tool to help determine the welfare status of pigs. However, methodologies vary widely. Moreover, meat inspection is moving from palpation and incision towards visual‐only (VIS) examination. This study investigated whether a VIS examination was sufficient to detect tail damage compared to handling (HAND), which ensures examination of all aspects of the tail.
Method
The severity of tail skin damage (0 [undamaged] – 4 [partial/full loss of tail]) and presence/absence of bruises was scored using both methods after scalding/dehairing of 5498 pig carcasses.
Results
There was a good relationship between methods when evaluating tail skin damage (sensitivity, 82.48%; specificity, 99.98%; accuracy, 98.98%; correlation ρ = 0.84). The results were similar for the presence of bruises (sensitivity, 74.98%; specificity, 99.09%; accuracy, 89.94%; correlation ρ = 0.79). However, the percentage of tails classified as undamaged was higher using VIS (69.9%) than HAND (63.55%) examination. Conversely, VIS detected fewer mild lesions (score 1 – 13.64%; score 2 – 11.73%) than HAND (score 1 – 15.21%; score 2 – 15.53%). A higher percentage of bruises was detected using HAND than VIS (37.96% vs. 29.03%).
Conclusions
Visual evaluation is a valid alternative to handling evaluation of carcass tail damage and bruising.