A note on the changes in leg weakness in pigs after being transferred from confinement housing to pasture lots

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Abstract
It is a popular belief, supported by several scientific studies (Vaughan, 1971; McPhee and Laws, 1976; Fredeen and Sather, 1978; Sather and Fredeen, 1982) that leg weakness will diminish in young stock of breeding age after they are transferred from confinement housing to pasture lots. However, Nakano, Aherne and Thompson (1981) working with boars from the Canadian Swine ‘Record of Performance’ (ROP) testing programme found that no improvement in gait resulted after the animals were transferred from confinement housing with solid concrete flooring to pasture lots. The number of animals in the study was limited. All of these reports dealt only with the recovery of pigs from leg weakness and did not include pigs with sound legs at the beginning of the pasture period (approx. 90 kg live weight).

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