LAUSR

Abstract Pig breeding associations focus on breeding healthier pigs; however, valuable health-related phenotypes are limited. Apparent organ lesions documented during meat inspection may provide an opportunity to integrate phenotypes into the breeding program. Nevertheless, several factors influence the scoring of organ lesions causing intra-abattoir and inter-abattoir variations in the estimated prevalence. The utilization of recorded lesions as health-related phenotypes depends on a precise and uniform lesion definition and standardized data recording but these conditions are currently not sufficiently met in meat inspection data. Meat inspector training is often quoted as producing a sensitivity-increasing approach in the literature, and statistical approaches such as data scaling or latent-class models might handle this systematic abattoir effect. However, initial heritabilities have been estimated to demonstrate the potential of meat inspection data. Improving pig health via breeding by using this data currently requires further efforts but seems to be a valuable method for the future.