Previous research showed that deviations in longitudinal data are heritable and can be used as a proxy for pigs’ general resilience. However, only a few studies investigated the relationship between these resilience traits and other traits related to resilience and welfare. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between resilience traits derived from deviations in longitudinal data and traits related to animal resilience, health and welfare, such as tail and ear biting wounds, lameness and mortality. In our experiment, 1919 finishing pigs with known pedigree (133 Piétrain sires and 266 crossbred dams) were weighed every 2 weeks and scored for physical abnormalities, such as lameness and ear and tail biting wounds (17,066 records). Resilience was assessed via deviations in body weight, deviations in weighing order and deviations in observed activity during weighing. The association between these resilience traits and physical abnormality traits was investigated and genetic parameters were estimated. Deviations in body weight had moderate heritability estimates (h2 = 25.2 to 36.3%), whereas deviations in weighing order (h2 = 4.2%) and deviations in activity during weighing (h2 = 12.0%) had low heritability estimates. Moreover, deviations in body weight were positively associated and genetically correlated with tail biting wounds (rg = 0.22 to 0.30), lameness (rg = 0.15 to 0.31) and mortality (rg = 0.19 to 0.33). These results indicate that events of tail biting, lameness and mortality are associated with deviations in pigs’ body weight evolution. This relationship was not found for deviations in weighing order and activity during weighing. Furthermore, individual body weight deviations were positively correlated with uniformity at the pen level, providing evidence that breeding for these resilience traits might increase both pigs’ resilience and within-family uniformity. In summary, our findings show that breeding for resilience traits based on deviations in longitudinal weight data can decrease pigs’ tail biting wounds, lameness and mortality while improving uniformity at the pen level. These findings are valuable for pig breeders, as they offer evidence that these resilience traits are an indication of animals’ general health, welfare and resilience. Moreover, these results will stimulate the quantification of resilience via longitudinal body weights in other species.

中文翻译：

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育种育肥猪的复原能力可以减少咬尾、跛行和死亡率


先前的研究表明，纵向数据的偏差是可遗传的，可以作为猪总体恢复能力的指标。然而，只有少数研究调查了这些复原力特征与与复原力和福利相关的其他特征之间的关系。因此，本研究调查了源自纵向数据偏差的复原力特征与与动物复原力、健康和福利相关的特征（例如尾巴和耳朵咬伤、跛行和死亡率）之间的关系。在我们的实验中，每两周对 1919 头已知血统的育肥猪（133 头皮特兰公猪和 266 头杂交母猪）进行称重，并对身体异常情况进行评分，例如跛行以及耳朵和尾巴咬伤（17,066 条记录）。通过体重偏差、称重顺序偏差和称重过程中观察到的活动偏差来评估弹性。研究了这些弹性特征与身体异常特征之间的关联，并估计了遗传参数。体重偏差具有中等遗传力估计值（h2 = 25.2 至 36.3%），而称重顺序偏差（h2 = 4.2%）和称重期间活动偏差（h2 = 12.0%）具有较低遗传力估计值。此外，体重偏差与咬尾伤口（rg = 0.22至0.30）、跛行（rg = 0.15至0.31）和死亡率（rg = 0.19至0.33）呈正相关和遗传相关。这些结果表明，咬尾、跛行和死亡事件与猪体重演变的偏差有关。对于称重顺序和称重过程中的活动的偏差，没有发现这种关系。 此外，个体体重偏差与猪栏水平的均匀性呈正相关，这提供了证据表明，针对这些弹性特征的育种可能会提高猪的弹性和家庭内的均匀性。总之，我们的研究结果表明，基于纵向体重数据偏差的恢复性状育种可以减少猪的咬尾伤口、跛行和死亡率，同时提高猪栏水平的均匀性。这些发现对于养猪者来说很有价值，因为它们提供了证据，证明这些复原力特征是动物总体健康、福利和复原力的指标。此外，这些结果将刺激通过其他物种的纵向体重来量化弹性。