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Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups

Mixing gestating sows implies hierarchy formation and has detrimental consequences on welfare. The effects of social stress on the most vulnerable individuals may be underestimated and it is therefore important to evaluate welfare between individuals within groups. This study aimed at investigating...

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Autores principales: Brajon, Sophie, Ahloy-Dallaire, Jamie, Devillers, Nicolas, Guay, Frédéric
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186791/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34101733
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244704
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author Brajon, Sophie
Ahloy-Dallaire, Jamie
Devillers, Nicolas
Guay, Frédéric
author_facet Brajon, Sophie
Ahloy-Dallaire, Jamie
Devillers, Nicolas
Guay, Frédéric
author_sort Brajon, Sophie
collection PubMed
description Mixing gestating sows implies hierarchy formation and has detrimental consequences on welfare. The effects of social stress on the most vulnerable individuals may be underestimated and it is therefore important to evaluate welfare between individuals within groups. This study aimed at investigating the impact of social status and previous experience in the group on well-being of sows housed in large semi-static groups. We assessed aggression (d0 (mixing), d2, d27, d29), body lesions (d1, d26, d84) and feeding order on 20 groups of 46–91 animals. Social status was based on the proportion of fights won during a 6-hr observation period between d0 and d2. Dominants (29%) were those who won more fights than they lost, Subdominants (25%) won fewer fights than they lost, Losers (23%) never won any fight in which they were involved while Avoiders (23%) were never involved in fights. Resident sows (70%) were already present in the group in the previous gestation while New sows (30%) were newly introduced at mixing. Subdominants and Dominants were highly involved in fights around mixing but this was more detrimental for Subdominants than Dominants, Losers and Avoiders since they had the highest body lesion scores at mixing. Avoiders received less non-reciprocal agonistic acts than Losers on d2 (P = 0.0001) and had the lowest body lesion scores after mixing. However, Avoiders and Losers were more at risk in the long-term since they had the highest body lesions scores at d26 and d84. They were followed by Subdominants and then Dominants. New sows fought more (P<0.0001), tended to be involved in longer fights (P = 0.075) around mixing and had more body lesions throughout gestation than Resident sows. Feeding order from one-month post-mixing was influenced both by the previous experience in the group and social status (P<0.0001). New sows, especially with a low social status, are more vulnerable throughout gestation and could serve as indicators of non-optimal conditions.
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spelling pubmed-81867912021-06-16 Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups Brajon, Sophie Ahloy-Dallaire, Jamie Devillers, Nicolas Guay, Frédéric PLoS One Research Article Mixing gestating sows implies hierarchy formation and has detrimental consequences on welfare. The effects of social stress on the most vulnerable individuals may be underestimated and it is therefore important to evaluate welfare between individuals within groups. This study aimed at investigating the impact of social status and previous experience in the group on well-being of sows housed in large semi-static groups. We assessed aggression (d0 (mixing), d2, d27, d29), body lesions (d1, d26, d84) and feeding order on 20 groups of 46–91 animals. Social status was based on the proportion of fights won during a 6-hr observation period between d0 and d2. Dominants (29%) were those who won more fights than they lost, Subdominants (25%) won fewer fights than they lost, Losers (23%) never won any fight in which they were involved while Avoiders (23%) were never involved in fights. Resident sows (70%) were already present in the group in the previous gestation while New sows (30%) were newly introduced at mixing. Subdominants and Dominants were highly involved in fights around mixing but this was more detrimental for Subdominants than Dominants, Losers and Avoiders since they had the highest body lesion scores at mixing. Avoiders received less non-reciprocal agonistic acts than Losers on d2 (P = 0.0001) and had the lowest body lesion scores after mixing. However, Avoiders and Losers were more at risk in the long-term since they had the highest body lesions scores at d26 and d84. They were followed by Subdominants and then Dominants. New sows fought more (P<0.0001), tended to be involved in longer fights (P = 0.075) around mixing and had more body lesions throughout gestation than Resident sows. Feeding order from one-month post-mixing was influenced both by the previous experience in the group and social status (P<0.0001). New sows, especially with a low social status, are more vulnerable throughout gestation and could serve as indicators of non-optimal conditions. Public Library of Science 2021-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8186791/ /pubmed/34101733 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244704 Text en © 2021 Brajon et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Brajon, Sophie
Ahloy-Dallaire, Jamie
Devillers, Nicolas
Guay, Frédéric
Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
title Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
title_full Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
title_fullStr Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
title_full_unstemmed Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
title_short Social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
title_sort social status and previous experience in the group as predictors of welfare of sows housed in large semi-static groups
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186791/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34101733
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244704
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