🐾 Animal Welfare Hub

Key Facts

• Affects the majority of pig farms globally, causing chronic coughing and poor growth
• Mycoplasma infection predisposes to secondary bacterial pneumonia
• Pigs experience chronic respiratory compromise affecting behavior and welfare
• Vaccination reduces clinical signs but does not eliminate infection
• Good ventilation and all-in/all-out management reduce disease burden significantly

Welfare Considerations

Enzootic pneumonia creates a pervasive welfare problem across global pig production. Chronically coughing pigs experience respiratory discomfort that affects their ability to compete for resources, engage in normal behavior, and maintain body condition. Secondary bacterial infections causing acute bronchopneumonia create acute welfare emergencies within the chronic background. The disease is so ubiquitous that its welfare impacts are often normalized rather than addressed. Best-practice farms using good ventilation, vaccination, strategic medication, and appropriate stocking densities demonstrate that disease burden and welfare impact can be significantly reduced.

What You Can Do

• Advocate for high health status pig production with minimal mycoplasma burden
• Support farms that invest in good ventilation and appropriate stocking densities
• Choose pork products from farms with published health and welfare standards
• Encourage adoption of monitoring for respiratory disease on farms
• Support research into effective pig respiratory welfare indicators