Effect of mixing at weaning and nutrient density of the weaner diet on growth performance and welfare of pigs to slaughter

Table 4 Effect of mixing at weaning or keeping pigs in litter groups and dietary regimen on the total body lesion (BL) counts, ear and tail lesion scores in pigs from weaning to finish

	Dietary regimen ²					p values
	CON		LOW			Kruskal-Wallis	GLMM
Trait ¹	Litter	Mixed	Litter	Mixed	SEM ³	Group	Mixing	Diet	Mixing × Diet
Weaning, d30
Total BL	11.6	36.8	9.9	42.4	2.92	-	< 0.001	0.523	0.161
Ear score	0.13 ^b (0.06–0.34)	0.58 ^a (0.39–1.09)	0.04 ^b (0–0.21)	0.86 ^a (0.74–1)	-	< 0.001	-	-	-
Tail score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	-	1.000	-	-	-
Nursery, d42
Total BL	4.6	4.2	4.5	3.4	0.84	-	0.296	0.891	0.790
Ear score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0.02)	0 (0–0)	-	0.896	-	-	-
Tail score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	-	0.563	-	-	-
End of nursery, d71
Total BL	24.3	22.8	23.0	24.7	1.38	-	0.908	0.091	0.259
Ear score	0 ^ab (0–0)	0 ^b (0–0)	0.042 ^a (0–0.26)	0 ^ab (0–0.02)	-	0.033	-	-	-
Tail score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	-	0.790	-	-	-
Beginning of growing-finishing, d76
Total BL	23.5	26.1	27.2	29.6	1.96	-	0.155	0.009	0.517
Ear score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0.13)	0 (0–0)	-	0.343	-	-	-
Tail score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	-	0.563	-	-	-
End of growing-finishing, d151
Total BL	19.8	18.8	19.5	18.1	1.31	-	0.311	0.760	0.832
Ear score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	-	0.392	-	-	-
Tail score	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	0 (0–0)	-	0.563	-	-	-

¹ Total body lesions (BL): Sum of body lesions (BL) from the anterior, middle, and posterior body sections in each pig expressed as mean average; Ear score: ear lesions on a scale 0–4. Tail score: tail lesions on a scale 0–3. Ear and tail scores are expressed as medians with interquartile ranges (md (Q25–Q75)). Values of ear and tail scores within a row with different letters significantly differ (a,b: p < 0.05).
² CON: dietary regimen meeting pigs’ nutritional requirements; LOW: low-density dietary regime with − 10% of energy and protein than CON during the nursery period, but with the same dietary regimen as CON during the growing-finishing period.
³ Standard error of the mean.

ISSN: 2055-5660