Challenges posed to the traceability of weaner pigs following live auction

Objectives   To gather demographic data on live pig sales through a peri-urban saleyard in Camden, New South Wales, and to demonstrate the difficulties in tracing the subsequent movements of pigs, particularly weaner pigs.
Procedure   Records of pig sales held weekly at the Camden saleyards for the 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 financial years were analysed. Saleyard data on a number of variables were entered into a purpose-designed database. Distributions of pig sales according to pig class (weaner/porker/baconer/backfatter), purchaser type (butcher/non-butcher), and transaction type (cash/account) were determined.
Results   More weaners (3192 in 2003/2004 and 3940 in 2004/2005) were sold than any other class of pig, accounting for 45% of the total pigs sold during this period. During 2003/2004, 3802 pigs were bought by 329 non-butcher purchasers including 1631 weaners (43%) purchased by 153 non-butchers (47%). The majority of these non-butchers during the study period (86%) paid cash for their pigs and did not provide the necessary information to allow the end destination of pigs to be determined. Location data was available for all vendors but only 25% of purchasers.
Conclusions   This study highlights the challenges posed in tracing movement of pigs following sale by auction. A high proportion of weaners sold at this peri-urban saleyard would not have been slaughtered immediately. This study highlights the potential difficulties in tracing pig movements after sale, for disease control purposes. We recommend that legislation be amended requiring the identification of weaner pigs sold live at auction in all states of Australia and the recording of the property identification code of all vendors and purchasers of pigs sold live at auction.