EIP Project Database

Federal State

Lower Saxony and Bremen

Project Title

OldBreedNewHouse

Project description

In this project, cross breeds of "old" and "new" pig breeds will be tested under practical conditions with regard to their behavior, in particular towards penmates. For this purpose, sows of today's commonly used genetics will be crossbreed with old pig breeds such as Schwäbisch Hällische and Bunte Bentheimer. As a control, cross breeds from commonly used genetics with Pietrain will be used.

Final report

Download report (PDF file)

Results focusing on practiceorientation

The results of the present study show that the sire breed does influence injurious behaviour. After weaning and regrouping, significantly fewer Bentheim Black Pied pigs (BB) had severe skin lesions on the front body than Swabian-Hall (SH) or Piétrain (Pi) pigs. At regrouping for fattening, significantly more SH pigs were assessed with skin lesions than Pi and BB pigs. The incidence of tail lesions and losses was mainly affected the docking status, as they only occurred in undocked pigs. In the first four weeks of rearing, significantly more undocked BB pigs were scored with no tail lesions and tail losses than their counterparts. For the last weeks of the rearing period, no significant differences could be detected between the different breeds for tail lesions and losses. At the end of the fattening period, no SH pigs could be found without tail losses. During suckling period, undocked Pi piglets had significantly lower average daily gains (ADG) than docked... (see final report)

Main funding source

Rural development 2014-2020 for Operational Groups (in the sense of Art 56 of Reg.1305/2013)

Project status

completed

Total budget applied for in EUR

468,489

Link 1

project website of EIP Lower Saxony

NUTS3 CODE

DE949