Hygiene procedures of trucks transporting live pigs: multi-assessment validation of a standardized C&D protocol.

Inadequately cleaned transport vehicles can act as reservoirs for pathogens jeopardizing pigs' health status. Although effective cleaning and disinfection (C&D) of live-pig transport trucks is required by law, there is still no universally accepted protocol for C&D of trucks. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a standardized hygiene protocol under field conditions and to provide practical guidance, thereby fostering harmonized hygiene procedures. Starting from current legislation for barn C&D, and refining it through available literature, a detailed standardized protocol for truck hygiene was developed. Each vehicle was divided into three functional sections: transport unit, boot-storage compartment, and driver's cabin. The protocol was applied to 15 trial trucks transporting live pigs and compared with 23 market trucks, which served as controls. C&D was assessed through visual inspection, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) testing, and microbiological analyses of environmental samples, including total viable count (TVC) on all trucks. Samples were collected at the three functional sections of the trucks. Trial trucks achieved significantly higher visual scores than control trucks (82.10 ± 9.72 vs. 72.20 ± 7.48;