Search

It was the aim of the study to investigate the effect of a prolonged suckling period and group housing before weaning on tail biting in undocked nursery pigs. To do this, experiments with three treatment groups were investigated. In the first group, pigs were conventionally housed in pens with farrowing crates for a four-week suckling period (SH-4). In the second group, suckling was prolonged to five weeks whereas housing was the same as in the first group (SH-5). The animals of the third group were kept in a group housing system for six sows and their piglets during a five-week suckling period (GH-5). At weaning, piglets were moved to conventional rearing pens in which two litters of the same treatment group were mixed together. Scoring of tail lesions and tail losses was carried out once a week from birth to end of rearing at the level of the individual animal. Significant effects on tail lesions were found for week after weaning (p

The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of vaccination against boar taint on testosterone levels, body weight and behaviour in male fattening pigs when compared with boars and barrows. The study was carried out in two replicates over time. Pigs were allocated to fattening pens according to treatment group (immunised males (IM), castrated males (CM), entire males (EM)) with 10 and 13 pigs per pen in batches one and two, respectively. IM pigs were vaccinated twice with Improvac™ according to manufacturer's instructions (first injection was given on the day of entry to the fattening unit, second injection was performed when pigs had an average weight of 76.6 kg and 80.4 kg in the two replicates over time, respectively). During fattening, pigs were videotaped twice (test periods one and two) for a consecutive period of 96 h during each test period and blood samples were taken. Live weight measurements were conducted on a weekly basis. Before second vaccination was given (test period one), IM pigs had serum testosterone levels comparable to those of entire boars. Two weeks after second Improvac™-injection (test period two) testosterone levels of IM pigs decreased significantly ( p p p