Preselection of finishing pigs on the farm as an aid for meat inspection.

The ability of pig suppliers to separate pigs with abnormalities from pigs without abnormalities at the end of the finishing period was investigated. Nineteen hundred and seventy-eight pigs, delivered by 22 pig suppliers, were involved in the experiment. The pigs were inspected on the farm by the pig supplier and, separately, by a veterinary expert. The animals were sent in 22 deliveries to one slaughterhouse. A veterinary meat inspector carried out the ante- and post-mortem inspections. The results of the inspections were compared. The measure of agreement, Cohen's Kappa (CK), indicated a poor (CK less than 0.40) to fair (0.40 less than CK less than 0.75) agreement among the results of the different inspection procedures, depending on the abnormality under investigation. There was a fair to good agreement for the abnormality 'tail lesion' among all inspections. Some findings of the live animal, such as 'straggler', were associated with a wide range of post-mortem abnormalities. It is concluded that preselection is possible and that the economic and practical feasibility of preselection should be investigated.