Reproduction performances and conditions of group-housed non ...
Reproduction performances and conditions of group-housed non ...
Reproduction performances and conditions of group-housed non ...
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Paper IV<br />
- Summary -<br />
Results from experimental studies suggest that <strong>group</strong> housing may lead to individual varia-<br />
tion in feed intake, stress <strong>and</strong> fear, which may impair the reproduction performance. How-<br />
ever, whether the individual variation in feed intake, stress <strong>and</strong> fear in sows <strong>group</strong> <strong>housed</strong><br />
under commercial <strong>conditions</strong> is severe enough to be responsible for an impairment <strong>of</strong> the<br />
reproduction performance was not known. Therefore, a detailed farm study including 14<br />
herds with different layouts <strong>and</strong> management routines was carried out <strong>and</strong> the relations<br />
between various indicators <strong>of</strong> feed intake, stress <strong>and</strong> fear <strong>and</strong> reproduction performance<br />
were studied. Positive correlations between back fat gain from weaning to three weeks<br />
after mating <strong>and</strong> chance <strong>of</strong> pregnancy (P