A seroepidemiological survey of Leptospira bratislava infections in Danish sow herds

Abstract A total of 796 sows and gilts from 30 Danish sow herds were examined three times at intervals of 6 weeks for serum antibodies to Leptospira bratislava by the microscopic agglutination technique (MAT) test. The prevalence of seroreactors with positive titer values, ⩾ 1:100, at the three successive tests were 2.7%, 2.5% and 2.9%; 4.5% of the animals were positive in at least one of the three tests, and 2.2% showed a greater than two-fold rise in titer between two consecutive samplings. Of the 30 herds, 21 (70%) had ever-positive within-herd prevalences in sows and gilts of 4–13%. The risk of a herd having one or more positive sow was positively associated with a herd size of > 141 sows, and distinct regional differences in the prevalence of positive herds were observed. The reproductive performance of the 21 herds with seroreactions was poorer than the performance of the nine herds without positive reactions concerning the variables: ‘days from weaning to last service’ (2.7 days more, P = 0.07), ‘percentage of sows returning to heat’ (4.0 percentage units more, P = 0.03), ‘services per farrowing’ (0.04 more, P = 0.04), ‘farrowing percentage’ (4.3 percentage units lower, P = 0.06), and ‘stillborn pigs per farrowing’ (0.16 more, P = 0.02). No association between the MAT serological status of the herd and the incidence of medical treatments of sows and gilts could be found. A high prevalence and low cumulative incidence of seroreactors was demonstrated in first-parity gilts, followed by a low prevalence and cumulative incidence from parity 2 to 3, and a high prevalence and cumulative incidence at the fifth parity.