[Leg disorders in swine: clinical changes attributable to the type of flooring].

Clinical symptoms of leg weakness were assessed in three groups of pigs, consisting of sixty-four, thirty-two and thirty-two animals respectively at four-week intervals during the fattening period. The animals of the various groups were housed in pens (eight pigs in each pen) with one of three types of flooring, viz. a concrete slatted floor, a floor of recycled plastic slats, or a perforated floor of polyurethane. The pigs housed on concrete slatted floors showed less severe clinical symptoms of leg weakness compared to the animals housed on floors of recycled plastic slats. The third group of pigs, those on the perforated floor of polyurethane, showed symptoms of internediate severity. The claws of the pigs in the most severely affected group were significantly longer than those of the pigs in the two other groups. Moreover, the distal parts of the limbs of these animals were much weaker, and the proportion of lame animals in this group was larger compared with that of the two other groups.