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Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny

BACKGROUND: In commercial pig production, reduction of harmful social behavioural traits, such as ear manipulation and tail biting, is of major interest. Moreover, farmers prefer animals that are easy to handle. The aim of this experiment was to determine whether selection on social breeding values...

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Autores principales: Nielsen, Bjarne, Horndrup, Lizette Vestergaard, Turner, Simon P., Christensen, Ole Fredslund, Nielsen, Hanne Marie, Ask, Birgitte
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10367277/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37491205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00828-9
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author Nielsen, Bjarne
Horndrup, Lizette Vestergaard
Turner, Simon P.
Christensen, Ole Fredslund
Nielsen, Hanne Marie
Ask, Birgitte
author_facet Nielsen, Bjarne
Horndrup, Lizette Vestergaard
Turner, Simon P.
Christensen, Ole Fredslund
Nielsen, Hanne Marie
Ask, Birgitte
author_sort Nielsen, Bjarne
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In commercial pig production, reduction of harmful social behavioural traits, such as ear manipulation and tail biting, is of major interest. Moreover, farmers prefer animals that are easy to handle. The aim of this experiment was to determine whether selection on social breeding values (SBV) for growth rate in purebred pigs affects behaviour in a weighing crate, lesions from ear manipulation, and tail biting of their crossbred progeny. Data were collected on crossbred F1 pigs allocated to 274 pens, which were progeny of purebred Landrace sows and Yorkshire boars from a DanBred nucleus herd. RESULTS: Behaviour in the weighing crate scored on a three-level scale showed that groups of pigs with high SBV for growth rate were significantly calmer than groups of pigs with low SBV (P < 0.027). When the mean SBV in the group increased by 1 unit, the proportion of pigs that obtained a calmer score level was increased by 14%. A significant (p = 0.04), favourable effect of SBV was found on both the number of pigs with ear lesions in the group and the mean number of ear lesions per pig. For a 1 unit increase in mean SBV, the mean number of lesions per pig decreased by 0.06 from a mean of 0.98. Individual severity of ear lesions conditional upon the number of ear lesions was also significantly affected (p = 0.05) by the mean SBV in the group. In groups for which the mean SBV increased by 1 unit, the proportion of pigs that were observed with a lower severity score was increased by 20% on a three-level scale. Most pigs received no tail biting injuries and no effect of SBV was observed on the tail injury score. CONCLUSIONS: After 7 weeks in the finisher unit, crossbred progeny with high SBV were calmer in the weighing crate and had fewer ear lesions. These results indicate that selection of purebred parents for SBV for growth rate will increase welfare in their crossbred progeny by decreasing the number of ear lesions and making them easier to handle.
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spelling pubmed-103672772023-07-26 Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny Nielsen, Bjarne Horndrup, Lizette Vestergaard Turner, Simon P. Christensen, Ole Fredslund Nielsen, Hanne Marie Ask, Birgitte Genet Sel Evol Research Article BACKGROUND: In commercial pig production, reduction of harmful social behavioural traits, such as ear manipulation and tail biting, is of major interest. Moreover, farmers prefer animals that are easy to handle. The aim of this experiment was to determine whether selection on social breeding values (SBV) for growth rate in purebred pigs affects behaviour in a weighing crate, lesions from ear manipulation, and tail biting of their crossbred progeny. Data were collected on crossbred F1 pigs allocated to 274 pens, which were progeny of purebred Landrace sows and Yorkshire boars from a DanBred nucleus herd. RESULTS: Behaviour in the weighing crate scored on a three-level scale showed that groups of pigs with high SBV for growth rate were significantly calmer than groups of pigs with low SBV (P < 0.027). When the mean SBV in the group increased by 1 unit, the proportion of pigs that obtained a calmer score level was increased by 14%. A significant (p = 0.04), favourable effect of SBV was found on both the number of pigs with ear lesions in the group and the mean number of ear lesions per pig. For a 1 unit increase in mean SBV, the mean number of lesions per pig decreased by 0.06 from a mean of 0.98. Individual severity of ear lesions conditional upon the number of ear lesions was also significantly affected (p = 0.05) by the mean SBV in the group. In groups for which the mean SBV increased by 1 unit, the proportion of pigs that were observed with a lower severity score was increased by 20% on a three-level scale. Most pigs received no tail biting injuries and no effect of SBV was observed on the tail injury score. CONCLUSIONS: After 7 weeks in the finisher unit, crossbred progeny with high SBV were calmer in the weighing crate and had fewer ear lesions. These results indicate that selection of purebred parents for SBV for growth rate will increase welfare in their crossbred progeny by decreasing the number of ear lesions and making them easier to handle. BioMed Central 2023-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC10367277/ /pubmed/37491205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00828-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Nielsen, Bjarne
Horndrup, Lizette Vestergaard
Turner, Simon P.
Christensen, Ole Fredslund
Nielsen, Hanne Marie
Ask, Birgitte
Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
title Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
title_full Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
title_fullStr Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
title_full_unstemmed Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
title_short Selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
title_sort selection for social genetic effects in purebred pigs improves behaviour and handling of their crossbred progeny
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10367277/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37491205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00828-9
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