Reproduction performances and conditions of group-housed non ...

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- Paper III - Almost all indicators were influenced by herd and batches within herd. This suggests that the indicators are sensitive to herd- and batch-specific factors. Furthermore, it seems that all indicators, except % in box, lying solitary three weeks after mating and the two fear tests performed three weeks after first mating were sensitive to the sow-specific factor, parity. With the above-mentioned and the theoretical background (Kongsted, 2004a) in mente, there are indications that the back fat measurements, the skin lesion assessments and the behavioural observations might be relevant indicators of the sows’ condition especially in relation to feed intake, stress and fear at herd, batch and individual sow level in commercial herds with group housed non-lactating sows. For almost all indicators, the variation between herds was larger than the variation within herd between batches. This suggests that factors that might differ between herds, e.g. layout, management and genetics, influence the indicators more than factors which might differ between batches like e.g. climatic conditions. When the layout factors employed in the later analyses were taken into account, the percentage of variation explained by herd decreased only with a few percentage points (
- Paper III - In herds practising group feeding in the pregnancy department, back fat at farrowing decreased significantly with decreasing parity number. This was not the case in herds with individual feeding. Since the same pattern was seen already at weaning, this may partly be a result of the sows’ condition at weaning more than a result of the sows condition throughout the non-lactating period (qua the high correlations between the back fat measurements between different measurement day). However, as the interaction between system and parity group became more and more significant for every day of measurement, it indicates that high-parity sows are favoured in herds with group feeding to a much larger extent compared to herds with individual feeding. This is further supported by the higher increase in back fat gain from weaning to three weeks in pregnancy with increasing parity group seen in the group feeding systems. The effect of parity group on back fat gain from three weeks after mating to farrowing did not differ between feeding systems. However when including the interaction, although the non-significance (P=0.17) the same trend was seen (results not shown). In addition, the behavioural observations showed that sows older than third parity spend significant more time eating compared to first to third parity sows in the group feeding herds. As several studies have found a positive correlation between parity and rank (Arey & Edwards, 1998), it seems that the low ranked sows had less access to feed compared to the older high ranked sows in group feeding systems. This is supported by results from a previously field study that indicated lower feed intake in low compared to high ranking sows, as indicated by less increase in chest girth (Olsson & Svendsen, 1997). Also several experimental studies have indicated lower feed intake in low compared to high ranking sows in group feeding systems, as indicated by lower weight gain (Brouns & Edwards, 1994; Ruis et al., 2002), less time spend at the central area of the pile of feed provided on the floor (Csermely & Wood-Gush, 1990) and less time spent at the trough (Andersen et al., 1999). The result of the back fat measurements implies that group fed sows in average are provided with a larger amount of feed compared to individual fed sows probably in an attempt to achieve that all sows, also the low ranked get adequate amount of feed during pregnancy. The results of this study indicate an overfeeding of sows older than third parity more than an underfeeding of the young sows when looking upon average data. However, in the herds with group feeding, six % of all sows had back fat depth less than 10 mm at farrowing. In addition, in the group feeding systems, 11 out of 256 sows ate less than 20 % of all observations during feeding and four sows did not eat at all three weeks after mating. In this study, all the sows in the group feeding herds were fed amounts of feed below their capacity for feed intake during pregnancy (Brouns et al., 1991). It is therefore presumable that the majority of sows were motivated to eat (Jensen et al., 2000) and that sows, which did not eat were displaced from the feed or ‘chose’ to stay away to avoid aggressions. Taken 79
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Reproduction performances and condi
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Contents Summary………………
Page 7 and 8:
Paper II - Summary - A review of 15
Page 10 and 11:
- Sammendrag - SAMMENDRAG Antallet
Page 12:
- Sammendrag - søgt. Positive korr
Page 15 and 16:
- Background and aim - systems and
Page 18:
- Outline of this thesis - OUTLINE
Page 21 and 22:
- How does group housing vary in pr
Page 23 and 24: - How does group housing vary in pr
Page 26 and 27: - Paper I - Effect of energy intake
Page 28 and 29: - Paper I - 1. Introduction The num
Page 30 and 31: - Paper I - Therefore, the aim of t
Page 32 and 33: Refer ence Table 1. Effect of energ
Page 34 and 35: - Paper I - Therefore, low energy s
Page 36 and 37: Table 2. Effect of energy intake in
Page 38 and 39: - Paper I - However, this does not
Page 40 and 41: Table 3. Effect of energy intake in
Page 42 and 43: - Paper I - Feeding sows 16, 27 or
Page 44 and 45: - Paper I - gonadotrophins (LH, FSH
Page 46 and 47: - Paper I - the first four weeks af
Page 48 and 49: - Paper I - Cosgrove, J.R., Foxcrof
Page 50 and 51: - Paper I - Matschke, G.H., 1964. T
Page 52: - Paper I - Tribble, L.F., Orr, D.E
Page 55 and 56: - Paper III - Indicators of feed in
Page 57 and 58: - Paper III - 1. Introduction The n
Page 59 and 60: Table 1. Applied feeding and housin
Page 61 and 62: - Paper III - performed. The sow ha
Page 63 and 64: - Paper III - proximately three wee
Page 65 and 66: - Paper III - Table 3. Overall mean
Page 67 and 68: Table 5. Correlations between all c
Page 69 and 70: Back fat W, mm Back fat gain, AM-F,
Page 71 and 72: - Paper III - from three weeks afte
Page 73: - Paper III - Number of skin lesion
Page 77 and 78: - Paper III - Previous work have fo
Page 79 and 80: References - Paper III - Andersen,
Page 81 and 82: - Paper III - Kongsted, A.G. 2004a.
Page 83 and 84: - Paper IV - Relation between repro
Page 85 and 86: - Paper IV - 1. Introduction Group
Page 87 and 88: - Paper IV - ing compared to number
Page 89 and 90: - Paper IV - mixed model using the
Page 91 and 92: Table 2. Estimates and standard err
Page 93 and 94: - Paper IV - cial effect on high ra
Page 95 and 96: References - Paper IV - Aherne, F.X
Page 97 and 98: - Paper IV - Olsson, A.-C., Svendse
Page 99 and 100: - General discussion - GENERAL DISC
Page 101 and 102: - General discussion - However, an
Page 103 and 104: References - General discussion - A
Page 105 and 106: - Conclusions - 6. CONCLUSIONS Two
Page 107 and 108: - Appendix 1 - APPENDIX 1 LITTER SI
Page 109 and 110: - Appendix 1 - they are mature i.e.
Page 111 and 112: - Appendix 1 - Soon after ovulation
Page 113 and 114: - Appendix 1 - Crombie, P.L., 1970.
Page 115: - Appendix 1 - Scott, M.A., 2000. A
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