As the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports, according to preliminary results, commercial slaughterhouses produced 6.8 million tons of meat in 2023. That was 4.0% or 280,200 tons less than in the previous year. This means that domestic meat production has fallen for the seventh year in a row since its peak in 2016 (8.25 million tonnes). After comparatively slight declines from 2017, meat production fell by 8.1% in 2022 compared to the previous year, and now meat production fell again significantly in 2023. A total of 47.9 million pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and horses as well as 702.2 million chickens, turkeys and ducks were slaughtered in slaughterhouses in 2023.

With 43.8 million animals slaughtered in 2023, the number of pigs slaughtered fell by 7.0% or 3.3 million compared to the previous year. The number of pigs of domestic origin slaughtered fell by 7.7% to almost 42.3 million animals. The number of imported pigs slaughtered in German slaughterhouses, however, rose by 19.5% to 1.5 million animals. In total, slaughterhouses produced around 4.2 million tons of pork in 2023. That was 6.8% or 306,500 tons less than in 2022. Compared to the record year of 2016, around 1.4 million tonnes less pork were produced in 2023, which corresponds to a decline of over a quarter (-25.1%).

Infectious diseases are among the factors that most limit the efficiency of livestock production, since its appearance entails losses associated with increased mortality, a decrease in the feed transformation index, increased veterinary costs and the loss of value of infected carcasses. 

A good example of this can be found in the pork sector, which currently provides the most widely consumed red meat worldwide, and in the health and economic risk that the Aujeszky’s disease, one of the most important swine virus diseases. In Spain, Aujeszky’s disease has been eradicated in domestic pigs, but it is present in wild boar, which carries a significant risk of reinfection of the domestic swine herd. The direct economic losses associated with an outbreak of Aujeszky’s disease for a pig farm free of the disease could be between €350 and €800 per adult female per year.

A new epidemiological model, developed by researchers from the University of Lleida and the Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC), has revealed the effects of combining management practices and vaccination on the control of Aujeszky’s disease in a standard pig production system under different epidemiological scenarios. It is a computational model of population dynamics (known as the “PDP model” for its acronym in English: Population Dynamics P systems), a novel tool that is especially suitable for studying complex dynamic problems efficiently, since it allows to simultaneously consider a large number of interactions between different processes.

The model results indicate that, once a diagnosis of infection is confirmed on a farm, early vaccination of the majority of the population (we are talking about more than 75%) is critical to reduce the spread of the virus and minimize its impact on pig productivity. For their part, management practices seem to have an insignificant effect on virus control, which could be associated with its great ease of spread.

A team of Chinese researchers supported by a US-based researcher investigated whether weaner pigs are provided with polysaccharides from a Japanese seaweed known as “kombu” or Laminaria japonica. The team published about their findings in the Journal of Veterinary Sciences in a research article published in December 2023. They investigated the effects of adding L. japonica polysaccharides to the diet on growth performance, faecal digestive enzyme activity, serum biochemical indices, and free amino acids in weaned piglets. The team looked into these kombu polysaccharides as they are comprised of a combination of different sugar residues. Those compounds exhibit a variety of beneficial biological functions.

The research team selected 120 healthy barrows for this study, which lasted 21 days. They assigned all piglets randomly assigned to 4 treatments according to the initial body weight. The team supplemented each concentration of L. japonica polysaccharides (0, 100, 200, or 400 mg/kg) to the basal diet. The research team computed average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and gain-to-feed ratio (G:F). At the end of the experiment, a single piglet from each pen, with a body weight closely aligned with the pen’s average, was selected, and the team obtained blood as well as faecal samples.

The results showed that polysaccharide supplementation at dosages of 200 and 400 mg/kg showed a significant enhancement in the ADG and ADFI of weaners during days 0-21.  Better growth performance was due to the improved digestive enzyme activities in the faeces and increased appetite and energy absorption of piglets. Polysaccharide supplementation at dosages of 200 and 400 mg/kg significantly increased the faecal amylase activity of piglets, due to the polysaccharide’s prebiotic activity, which promotes starch digestion and absorption. In addition, the polysaccharides linearly increased faecal amylase and lipase activities.

Regarding amino acid content in serum in the 400 mg/kg group increased levels of histidine and asparagine were observed in piglets due to increased protein digestion and absorption. In addition, polysaccharide supplementation at a dosage of 200 mg/kg reduced serum methionine and phenylalanine contents compared to piglets supplied the polysaccharides at a dosage of 100 mg/kg. At all levels (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg), polysaccharide supplementation did not impact the serum levels of e.g. glucose, total cholesterol and ammonia of weaned piglets. That is probably due to the short experimental period.

The authors concluded that supplementation of 200 and 400 mg/kg of L. japonica polysaccharides to the feed could increase growth performance and the amylase activity in the faeces of weaned piglets. They expect this to improve the nutrient metabolism ability of weaned piglets.