Samples of ear scrapings, serum and diaphragmatic muscle were collected from 271 fattening pigs at the slaughterhouse. The scrapings were examined for the presence of mites, and tests for specific antibodies to Sarcoptes scabiei var suis in the serum and meat juice were made with an experimental ELISA. The cut‐off value for the meat‐juice ELISA was estimated at an optical density of 0·5 by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, on the basis of the cut‐off value for the serum ELISA of 0·4. The results of the three tests were used in a Bayesian model to estimate the characteristics of each test. The specificity of the tests of the ear scrapings was considered to be 1 and their sensitivity was estimated by Bayesian analysis to be 0·86, with a 95 per cent confidence interval (CI) of 0·73 to 0·99. The sensitivity of the meat juice ELISA (0·71, 95 per cent CI 0·6 to 0·8) and its specificity (0·77, 95 per cent CI 0·66 to 0·89) were comparable with the sensitivity (0·73, 95 per cent CI 0·6 to 0·8) and specificity (0·81, 95 per cent CI 0·69 to 0·95) of the serum ELISA.