Grouping piglets by sex at weaning reduces aggressive behaviour

Colson, Violaine; Orgeur, P.; Courboulay, Valérie; Dantec, Sébastien; Foury, Aline; Mormède, Pierre

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2005.07.006

Cited by 34 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Lesions of the front part of the weaning piglets were more serious than were those of the middle and the rear in the control group (front: P<0.001; middle: P<0.001, Fig. 3), which further supported previous studies (Rundgren and Löfquist, 1989;Colson et al, 2006;Melotti et al, 2011;Mei et al, 2016). This result also indicated that the attacks received on the rear parts were reduced as the lesion of the rear parts generally included the hind legs until the tail (Rundgren and Löfquist, 1989;Melotti et al, 2011), and all piglets were processed following standard commercial practices of tail docking.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

Effects of former acquaintance on aggression, lesion and growth performance in weaned piglets after mixing

Mei¹,

Liu²

2017

IJAR

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Excessive aggression between weaned piglets after mixing is a welfare and production issue resulting in stress, injuries and economic losses. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of former acquaintance (FA) on aggression, lesion and growth performance in weaned, mixed piglets. The results showed that the FA group significantly reduced the number of fights, time spent fighting, number of bullying events, lesions, the average injury scores of the front site and middle site of weaned piglets after mixing. A significant interaction was found between the effects of sex and treatment on the number of fights won and bullying events, between the effects of days post-weaning and treatment on the lesion scores as well as between the effect of the lesion sites and treatments on the lesion score for all three days after mixing. The results suggested a potential welfare advantage to allow litters to have some acquaintance before weaning.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

Effects of former acquaintance on aggression, lesion and growth performance in weaned piglets after mixing

Mei¹,

Liu²

2017

IJAR

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“…The relationship between weight asymmetry and aggression has been described. The heavier pigs deliver significantly more bites, body lesions and fighting duration than the lighter ones, with heavier pigs fighting longer and winning more fights Melotti et al, 2011) involved in the first fight, have a shorter latency to win the first fight, and tend to not only initiate more aggression than females (Colson et al, 2006), but also win more fights than females in farm animals (Melotti et al, 2011). In the study, sex and body weight will be considered as the independent variables to investigate the effect of interaction on aggressive behaviors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In addition, much effort has been put into investigating the effects of mixing unfamiliar pigs in groups after weaning on aggression in commercial pig production (Arey and Franklin, 1995;Spoolder et al, 2000;Colson et al, 2006;Melotti et al, 2011). The relationship between weight asymmetry and aggression has been described.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The effect of mixing levels on aggression at weaning in piglets

Mei

Yang

Luo

et al. 2016

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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“…One trained observer viewed the videotapes and documented the duration and number of agonistic behavior per pen and hour by continuous sampling. Agonistic behavior in the present study was defined as a physical contact between two pigs with biting, pushing, circling and/or fleeing initiated by one of the pigs (Puppe, 1998;Colson et al, 2006;Li and Johnston, 2009). A fight was defined when it took at least 3 s. An interruption of 8 s between fight sequences of the same pigs was documented as two fights (Puppe, 1998).…”

Section: Recorded Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of growth performance and agonistic interaction in weaned piglets of different weight classes from farrowing systems with group or single housing

Bohnenkamp

Traulsen

Meyer

et al. 2013

Animal

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The present study was designed to analyze the growth performance, behavioral patterns and intensity of injuries of weaned pigs (26 days) during a rearing period of 6 weeks. The farrowing system (group housing (GH) v. single housing (SH)) and the post-weaning regrouping weight class (light, medium, heavy) were considered as the main factors. A number of 120 GH-pigs and 120 SH-pigs were kept in three batches (20 pens, 12 pigs each). The GH-and SH-pigs were divided by weight into three groups: light (5 to <7 kg), medium (.7 to <9 kg) and heavy (.9 to <12 kg), with two pigs of six different litters in each pen. The pigs were weighed individually at weaning (week 1) and during rearing (weeks 2, 3 and 7). The feed conversion ratio (FCR) was calculated between weeks 1 and 7. The duration and number of fights (NF) per pen and hour were determined by continuous sampling (40 h after weaning). Lesions of the integument were scored into four classes (none, minor, medium, severe) and recorded at weaning and 48 h afterwards. The farrowing system had no effect on the weights in week 1 (GH: 7.8 kg v. SH: 7.7 kg; week as linear, quadratic regression nested within housing systems) or in week 7 (GH: 29.4 kg v. SH: 28.6 kg). The body weights were influenced significantly by the weaning weight class (light: 11.7 kg (s.e. . The SH-pigs had more new skin lesions at the shoulders than the GH-pigs 48 h after weaning ( P , 0.05). In conclusion, early mixing of unacquainted litters during lactation had no influence on their growth performance during rearing but reduced agonistic behavior and lesion score difference during the first 2 days after weaning. No significant interaction between the farrowing system and weaning weight class was detected with regard to growth performance and NF.

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Grouping piglets by sex at weaning reduces aggressive behaviour

Cited by 34 publications

References 51 publications

Effects of former acquaintance on aggression, lesion and growth performance in weaned piglets after mixing

Effects of former acquaintance on aggression, lesion and growth performance in weaned piglets after mixing

The effect of mixing levels on aggression at weaning in piglets

Comparison of growth performance and agonistic interaction in weaned piglets of different weight classes from farrowing systems with group or single housing

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