Arthritis in pigs is a little more complicated than simply saying an older pig has “bad joints.” A pig that becomes stiff or lame may be dealing with degenerative osteoarthritis, an old injury, hoof trouble, osteochondrosis, a fracture, or an infection inside the joint. Those conditions can look surprisingly similar from the outside, but what happens next—and how successfully the pig can be treated—may be very different.
That distinction matters especially with Kunekunes. They can live far longer than the commercial pigs on which much of traditional swine medicine is based, so owners and breeders may eventually be caring for animals at ages when chronic joint problems become more relevant.
And while we still do not have good population studies telling us how common osteoarthritis is specifically in Kunekunes, there is now some interesting veterinary information involving the breed.
Arthritis Is Not One Disease
The word arthritis simply means inflammation involving a joint. The cause is what matters.
For pig owners, two broad categories are particularly important.
Degenerative arthritis, or osteoarthritis, develops as cartilage and other joint structures deteriorate. Previous injury, abnormal joint development, conformation, age, body weight and years of mechanical loading can all potentially contribute.
Infectious arthritis occurs when bacteria or other infectious organisms reach the joint. Pigs can develop joint infections from several organisms, including Streptococcus suis, Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae and several Mycoplasma species. Young piglets can also develop septic joints after bacteria gain entry through wounds, the navel or other routes. (Merck Veterinary Manual)
That is an important difference. An older pig that slowly becomes stiff over months is a very different veterinary case from a pig that suddenly refuses to bear weight on a swollen, painful joint.
How Common Are Joint Problems in Pigs?
There is no single useful number for “arthritis in pigs.”
Studies usually measure lameness, and lameness has many possible causes besides arthritis. A recent veterinary study reviewing previous research reported lameness prevalence ranging from about 3.3–9.8% in suckling pigs, 1.9–19.7% in grower-finisher pigs, and 4.5–38% in sows. Differences between herds appear to reflect genetics, flooring, nutrition and management as well as disease exposure. (study)
Among sows that were euthanized or found dead in earlier studies, joint disease and arthritis were reported in roughly 9–36% of animals. That does not mean one-third of normal sows have clinical arthritis; these were selected populations and the numbers cannot be applied directly to a pasture herd or to Kunekunes. (study)
It does tell us something useful, though: joint disease is not an unusual veterinary problem in pigs.
Older research also shows that osteochondrosis—abnormal development of cartilage and underlying bone—can be extremely common in rapidly growing commercial pigs and may later contribute to degenerative joint disease. (review)
What Does Osteoarthritis Look Like?
One reason arthritis can be missed early is that pigs are not always dramatic about showing pain.
Changes may be gradual:
- Taking longer to stand after resting
- Stiffness during the first few steps
- Shorter strides
- Favoring one leg
- Reluctance to walk as far as usual
- Lying down more frequently
- Difficulty negotiating slopes, steps or slick surfaces
- Reduced willingness to compete for feed
- Irritability when a painful joint is handled
- Loss of muscle over a chronically affected limb
A pig may also have good days and bad days.
Those signs deserve attention, but they do not diagnose arthritis. Hoof disease, abscesses, soft-tissue injuries, fractures and neurologic conditions can produce similar changes.
This is one reason prolonged lameness should not automatically be treated as “old age.”
Infectious Arthritis Can Look Very Different
Infectious arthritis deserves particular attention because early treatment can make an enormous difference.
Streptococcus suis, for example, can cause septicemia, meningitis and arthritis, particularly in post-weaning pigs. (Merck Veterinary Manual)
Swine erysipelas, caused primarily by Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, can also involve the joints. Chronic erysipelas arthritis may cause progressively painful, enlarged joints and eventually permanent joint damage. (Merck Veterinary Manual)
Mycoplasma-associated arthritis is another recognized cause of lameness in pigs.
When infectious arthritis is involved, veterinary references emphasize early and aggressive treatment. Once infection becomes chronic and the joint is badly damaged, treatment is considerably less likely to restore normal function. (Merck Veterinary Manual)
That is why sudden or severe lameness, fever, swollen joints, reluctance to rise, or a pig that stops eating should prompt veterinary evaluation rather than several days of “let's see if it improves.”
How Veterinarians Diagnose the Problem
A good examination starts with the pig walking.
Where does the stride shorten? Is one leg consistently affected? Does the pig improve after moving? Is there swelling, heat, hoof damage or pain when a particular joint is flexed?
Depending on the case, diagnosis may involve radiographs, ultrasound, CT imaging, examination of joint fluid, bacterial culture, PCR testing or other laboratory work.
Imaging is particularly helpful when osteoarthritis is suspected because it may reveal remodeling of bone, loss of normal joint space and other degenerative changes.
A 2025 veterinary study of 16 pigs with osteoarthritis used radiographs or CT scans to confirm the diagnosis before treating affected joints. (PubMed)
The lesson for owners is simple: lameness is a symptom, not a diagnosis.
Current Treatment for Osteoarthritis in Pigs
There is currently no medication that reliably makes a severely damaged joint become new again. Treatment therefore focuses on reducing pain, controlling inflammation, maintaining mobility and preventing additional stress on the joint.
Weight and Body Condition
Keeping a pig at an appropriate body condition is one of the most practical things an owner can control.
Extra body weight means extra load on already painful feet, shoulders, elbows, hips and stifles. For an easy-keeping breed such as the Kunekune, body condition deserves particular attention.
This does not mean making an older pig thin. It means avoiding the gradual weight gain that can be easy to overlook when seeing the animal every day.
Footing and Environment
A pig with painful joints needs secure footing.
Deep mud, slick concrete, steep ramps and situations that require repeated sharp turns can make mobility considerably harder. Dry bedding and an area where the pig can rise without slipping can make a noticeable difference in day-to-day comfort.
Hooves should also be inspected. Overgrown or unbalanced hooves can change the way weight travels through the limb and may aggravate an existing joint problem.
Controlled Movement
Complete inactivity is not automatically the best answer for chronic osteoarthritis.
Gentle movement helps maintain muscle, and that muscle supports the joint. The amount of exercise has to fit the pig. A comfortable walk across pasture is different from forcing a severely lame pig to move.
The goal is useful movement without repeatedly pushing the animal beyond what is comfortable.
Anti-Inflammatory and Pain Medication
NSAIDs are commonly used by veterinarians to reduce pain and inflammation in animals, including pigs.
There is an important complication in the United States: FDA currently lists the approved NSAID indication in pigs as control of fever associated with swine respiratory disease—not chronic osteoarthritis. Other uses can therefore involve veterinary extra-label prescribing. (FDA)
That matters particularly when a Kunekune is a breeding animal or could eventually enter the food chain. Drug selection, dosage and withdrawal intervals need to be worked out with the veterinarian rather than borrowed from a medication chart online.
NSAIDs can also affect the kidneys, liver and gastrointestinal tract, so simply increasing a dose or combining medications is not harmless. (FDA)
For food-producing animals, extra-label drug use has additional federal requirements and must occur within a valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship. (FDA)
Joint Injections: A Newer Option for Some Pigs
One of the more interesting developments in pig arthritis treatment comes from a 2025 veterinary study involving 16 pet pigs with diagnosed osteoarthritis.
Veterinarians treated 24 joints with intra-articular triamcinolone injections. Thirteen of the 16 pigs—81%—were reported by their owners to have improved lameness afterward. Improvement lasted from several weeks to several months. (PubMed)
That was a small retrospective study, so it should not be interpreted as proof that joint injections will work for every arthritic pig.
But it is important because it demonstrates that chronic osteoarthritis in pigs does not necessarily have to be approached with only two choices: tolerate the lameness or euthanize the animal.
Specialty veterinary treatment is beginning to give owners additional options.
For livestock or breeding pigs, however, medication and food-animal regulations still have to be considered before pursuing treatments developed primarily for companion pigs.
What About Surgery?
This is where the Kunekune story gets particularly interesting.
A peer-reviewed veterinary report published recently described a total elbow replacement in a 61-kilogram Kunekune sow with severe elbow osteoarthritis.
Veterinarians developed the surgical technique using pig cadavers and then performed the elbow replacement on the Kunekune sow. Follow-up radiographs through nine months showed satisfactory implant integration and alignment. (PubMed)
Clearly, joint replacement is not routine farm treatment.
But the case tells us two useful things. Severe osteoarthritis has been definitively documented in a Kunekune, and veterinary medicine is beginning to explore orthopedic treatments for pigs that would once have been considered unrealistic.
Are Kunekunes More Likely to Develop Arthritis?
This is where we need to separate what we know from what we suspect.
I could not find a peer-reviewed population study showing that Kunekunes have a higher overall rate of osteoarthritis than other pig breeds.
That means it would be premature to say that Kunekunes are genetically “an arthritic breed.”
There is, however, some breed-specific information worth watching.
The New Zealand Kunekune Association has published guidance discussing anecdotally reported shoulder lameness in Kunekunes. The document specifically states that the true incidence is unknown but raises possible roles for conformation, body weight and genetic factors. It also reports breeder observations that some problems appear later in life, sometimes around four to six years of age or older. (New Zealand Kunekune Association)
That is useful observational information, but it is not the same thing as a controlled scientific prevalence study.
For breeders, that distinction is important.
When a recurring orthopedic problem appears within a family line, it should be documented. If the pattern repeats among close relatives, that information becomes relevant to breeding decisions even before researchers have identified a particular gene.
Good breeding records are not just pedigrees. They are health records across generations.
Body Weight May Matter More Than We Realize
Kunekunes have one characteristic that deserves special attention when discussing joints: they are exceptionally easy keepers.
That trait is one of the reasons people enjoy raising them, but it can also make excessive body condition easy to normalize.
A pig can become overweight gradually enough that the change is difficult to notice.
For an animal already dealing with an abnormal shoulder, elbow, hip or hoof, every unnecessary pound has to be carried on that joint every time the pig stands or walks.
The New Zealand Kunekune guidance on shoulder lameness specifically identifies obesity as one possible contributing factor, although again, controlled research quantifying that risk in Kunekunes is not yet available. (New Zealand Kunekune Association)
Maintaining reasonable body condition is therefore one of those management decisions that makes sense even while the genetics are still being studied.
Do Not Assume Every Older Lame Kunekune Has Arthritis
This may be the most useful point in the entire discussion.
When an older pig becomes lame, osteoarthritis is certainly possible.
But so are:
- Hoof overgrowth or cracks
- Foot infection or abscess
- Septic arthritis
- Erysipelas-associated joint disease
- Mycoplasma-associated arthritis
- Osteochondrosis
- Tendon or ligament injury
- Fracture
- Spinal or neurologic disease
Treating all of those as ordinary age-related arthritis could delay treatment of something that is potentially infectious or correctable.
When I Would Call the Veterinarian
A mild stiffness that appears gradually deserves observation and evaluation, but some changes deserve a faster response.
I would be particularly concerned about a pig that suddenly becomes severely lame, refuses to rise, quits eating, develops a hot or swollen joint, runs a fever, begins dragging a limb, or shows rapidly worsening pain.
I would also want a veterinarian involved when stiffness becomes a repeated pattern.
Early diagnosis may preserve options that disappear once a joint has undergone months of irreversible damage.
What This Means for Kunekune Breeders
Kunekune breeders have an opportunity that the commercial swine industry often does not.
We frequently know the parents, grandparents, offspring and siblings of our animals. We may also keep breeding animals for many years.
That makes long-term observation valuable.
If an older sow develops significant shoulder or elbow disease, record it. Look at her siblings. Look at her offspring as they age. Ask whether similar problems have appeared elsewhere in the bloodline.
One arthritic pig proves very little.
A repeated pattern within related animals is something a responsible breeder should pay attention to.
The answer is not to panic or label an entire line based on one animal. It is to keep good records and make breeding decisions with more information rather than less.
Arthritis Does Not Automatically Mean the End
Some joint damage is permanent, and there comes a point when pain and loss of mobility can become a welfare issue.
But arthritis is not automatically a death sentence.
Weight management, better footing, hoof care, appropriate exercise, veterinary pain management and—in selected cases—advanced orthopedic treatment can sometimes keep pigs comfortable for a considerable period.
Research involving companion pigs is also expanding the treatment options available to veterinarians. The recent work with joint injections and the documented elbow replacement in a Kunekune sow are good examples of how quickly that field is changing. (PubMed)
What has not changed is the importance of noticing problems early.
A pig that becomes reluctant to walk, slower to rise or consistently lame is telling us something. The job is not simply to call it arthritis. The job is to figure out why the pig hurts and then decide what can reasonably be done about it.
About the Author
Mark Bengtson raises Kunekune pigs at BF Farm and has worked with the breed through years of breeding, daily husbandry and long-term herd management. His earlier work with the CDC also provided opportunities to learn from veterinarians and other specialists. BF Farm health articles combine that practical experience with current veterinary references rather than treating firsthand observation as a substitute for medical evidence.
This article is educational and is not a substitute for veterinary diagnosis or treatment. Medication choices, dosages and withdrawal periods for pigs should be determined with a veterinarian, particularly for breeding or food-producing animals.