Relationship between pathological findings and values of haematological and blood-chemistry variables in apparently healthy finishing pigs at slaughter.

The present study was performed to study possibilities of early decision making for appropriate conveyor-line at future slaughtering of normal, clinically healthy finishing pigs. Blood was collected at slaughter from barrows (n = 112). A meticulous examination for subclinical pathological lesions was performed, revealing 5 groups of subjects listed in order of increasing disease-activity: 1--no real disease-activity; 2--with mild subchronic lesions; 3--with subacute lesions; 4--with abscesses; and 5--with fibrinous-necrotic lesions. Significant differences for values of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), protein, albumin, globulins, and plasma viscosity appeared to occur in this series. It is suggested that measuring acute phase reactants in blood of slaughtered pigs in the near future may reveal appropriate modern tools for meat inspection and predicting slaughtered animal quality.