Gender effects on tail damage development in single- or mixed-sex groups of weaned piglets

摘要: Abstract While extensive research on tail biting among pigs has focused external factors (e.g., enrichment material), limited been conducted internal gender, breed or age), which may affect the predisposition of piglets to start biting. Furthermore, test factors, most previous used end point observations damage at abattoirs). However, potential causing biting, and expression itself can change over time as grow older. Tail development might provide more accurate information affecting than observation. Using development, we studied effect gender in single-sex mixed-sex groups was recorded two ways: a) number days before 40% observed with (40% incident point) b) a piglet (tail duration). A 2 × 2 factorial design this resulted four treatment categories: (1) all-male groups, (2) all-female (3) males (4) females groups. During observation period (no damage, bite marks wound) 700 weaned scored three times per week for 32 days. Following onset had lower (10.9 days), compared other categories (average 16 days; P