79. Genetic analysis of feeding behaviour and tail lesions

Martinsen, Kristine Hov; Nordbø, Øyvind; Enger, E.G.; Olsen, Dan R.; Grindflek, Eli

doi:10.3920/978-90-8686-940-4_79

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Heritability estimates for tail wound scores (h 2 = 16.4%) were low to moderate, and comparable to other studies reporting heritabilities for tail lesions, such as Martinsen et al (h 2 = 5%) [50], Hermesch et al (h 2 = 9 to 25%) [51] and a study on clinical tail biters by Breuer et al (h 2 = 0 to 27%) [52]. In our study, tail wound scores were also positively correlated with ear biting wound scores (r p = 0.19; r g = 0.32), which intuitively makes sense and was also found in previous studies [53][54][55][56].…”

Section: Traitsupporting

confidence: 86%

Breeding for resilience in finishing pigs can decrease tail biting, lameness and mortality

Gorssen,

Winters,

Meyermans

et al. 2024

Genet Sel Evol

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Background Previous research showed that deviations in longitudinal data are heritable and can be used as a proxy for pigs’ general resilience. However, only a few studies investigated the relationship between these resilience traits and other traits related to resilience and welfare. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between resilience traits derived from deviations in longitudinal data and traits related to animal resilience, health and welfare, such as tail and ear biting wounds, lameness and mortality. Results In our experiment, 1919 finishing pigs with known pedigree (133 Piétrain sires and 266 crossbred dams) were weighed every 2 weeks and scored for physical abnormalities, such as lameness and ear and tail biting wounds (17,066 records). Resilience was assessed via deviations in body weight, deviations in weighing order and deviations in observed activity during weighing. The association between these resilience traits and physical abnormality traits was investigated and genetic parameters were estimated. Deviations in body weight had moderate heritability estimates (h2 = 25.2 to 36.3%), whereas deviations in weighing order (h2 = 4.2%) and deviations in activity during weighing (h2 = 12.0%) had low heritability estimates. Moreover, deviations in body weight were positively associated and genetically correlated with tail biting wounds (rg = 0.22 to 0.30), lameness (rg = 0.15 to 0.31) and mortality (rg = 0.19 to 0.33). These results indicate that events of tail biting, lameness and mortality are associated with deviations in pigs’ body weight evolution. This relationship was not found for deviations in weighing order and activity during weighing. Furthermore, individual body weight deviations were positively correlated with uniformity at the pen level, providing evidence that breeding for these resilience traits might increase both pigs’ resilience and within-family uniformity. Conclusions In summary, our findings show that breeding for resilience traits based on deviations in longitudinal weight data can decrease pigs’ tail biting wounds, lameness and mortality while improving uniformity at the pen level. These findings are valuable for pig breeders, as they offer evidence that these resilience traits are an indication of animals’ general health, welfare and resilience. Moreover, these results will stimulate the quantification of resilience via longitudinal body weights in other species.

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