Proceedings of the International Symposium on Animal Science 2014, September 2014, Belgrade-Zemun 354 Original paper ESOPHAGOGASTRIC ULCER IN PIGS ON COMMERCIAL FARMS Bojkovski, J. 1* , Vasiü, A. 1 , Zdravkoviü, N. 1 , Milanov, D. 2 , Rogožarski, D. 3 1 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia 2 Scientific Veterinary Institute, Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia 3 Specilistic Veterinary Institute, Požarevac, Serbia * Corresponding author: bojkovski@vet.bg.ac.rs Abstract Intensive swine production in modern conditions of breeding and use of technological processes has influenced the occurrence of wide range of breeding and technopathy diseases. One of the most abundant breeding diseases declared in literature as an independent disease is esophagogastric ulcer characterized by erosions and ulcers in mostly esophagogastric part and rarely in mucous part of stomach. Esophagogastric ulcer is a disease of multifactorial etiology caused by genetic predisposition, diet, and presence of certain pathogenic microorganisms (for example Helicobacter pylori). The goal of our research was to examine the frequency of esophagogastric ulcer in pigs on commercial farms. One commercial farm has its own slaughterhouse for producing meat of fattened pigs. In our experiment we used 103 pigs in fattening with body weight between 100 and 107 kg and aged from 6 to 7 months. In the process line of slaughterhouse we established thickening of esophageal surface, hyperkeratosis, nonstructural yellow surface in 37 of total of 103 animals, while erosion of esophageal part of stomach, surface damage which does not include damage of muscular layer of mucous membrane, was present in 29 of 103 animals. Ulcers of esophageal part of stomach which affect total thickness of mucosal membrane were present in 4 of 103 examined animals. Key words: commercial farms, esophagogastric ulcer, pigs Introduction Esophagogastric ulcer occurs most commonly as an independent disease in pigs. The largest number of cases was recorded in sows and finishing pigs. It can be said that the incidence of esophageal ulcers is the most significant in young males aged about 8 weeks. A great number of articles suggest that the most frequent occurrence of ulcers is in swine body weight from 40 to 90kg (Lonþareviü et.al., 1997; Šamanc, 2009). According to some sources, frequency of occurrence of the ulcer in pig suggests the most common body weight of 60kg, then, from 70 to 100kg the incidence is falling and rising again in pigs heavier than 100kg. Primitive breeds of pigs are far more resistant than the noble ones in which the disease is far more common. There was a significantly higher incidence of these lesions in pigs of Duroc breed than in the Yorkshire breed (Guise et al., 1997). The goal of our research was to examine the frequency of esophagogastric ulcer in pigs on commercial farms. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by CaSA NaRA