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Connecting The Dots Between Tail Lesions, Teeth Clipping and Carcass Condemnations, by Melanie Boucher, DVM Southwest Ontario Veterinary Service

Osteomyelitis is the medical term for the presence of an abscess (pus) in bone. Osteomyelitis is often related to bacterial infections that are initially established within superficial lesions that subsequently invade adjacent tissues or travel to internal organs or tissues via the blood stream (pyemia). Tail lesions are a common source of bacteria that can enter the bloodstream and then spread to multiple organs and tissues where they can result in abscesses, lung lesions, arthritis, and osteomyelitis. If teeth clipping is not performed properly there can be unintended cracking of teeth, gingivitis, pulpitis, dental pulp exposure, snout swellings, and abscess formation . Most of the internal lesions are difficult to detect in the growing animal  and are usually detected when the carcass is inspected. When it appears that bacteria have been moving from point A to point B within the carcass the assumption is that there may be other infected sites within the carcass. As a consequence most carcasses with osteomyelitis are considered unfit for human consumption and the total carcass is condemned.

Osteomyelitis is the leading cause of total carcass condemnation in finishing pigs in Portugal. These Portuguese researchers wanted to look for possible links between osteomyelitis in pig carcasses. They used meat inspection data from 100,489 finishing pigs slaughtered in a northern Portuguese abattoir. Information regarding total carcass condemnation, slaughter season, origin, sex, tail-biting lesions, and husbandry invasive procedures including teeth clipping and tail docking was collected.

The researchers found the following:

  • Osteomyelitis was responsible for 61.04% of Total Condemns (TC)
    • 36.16% of osteomyelitis cases were present in the anterior region. Interestingly, 94.78% of anterior osteomyelitis cases were found within the mandibular jaw bone. Pigs with clipped teeth and carcasses with pleurisies were associated with a higher occurrence of osteomyelitis (p = 0.00262 and p < 0.0001, respectively). The researchers commented that to their knowledge this finding has not been reported in previous meat inspection research. The researchers commented that this particular processing plant splits the entire carcass from the tip of the nose to the tail exposing the mandible (jaw bone) for easy inspection.
    • 52.20% of osteomyelitis cases were present in the posterior region. Second- and third-grade tail-biting lesions were linked to a higher occurrence of osteomyelitis (p = 0.00128 and p < 0.0001, respectively).
    • The most common carcass location of osteomyelitis was in the posterior and thoracic vertebrae
  • Multiple abscesses were responsible for 8.63% of TCs
  • Bronchopneumonia was responsible for 7.10% of TCs
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