PMID- 33313717
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20210215
LR  - 20231019
IS  - 1525-3163 (Electronic)
IS  - 0021-8812 (Print)
IS  - 0021-8812 (Linking)
VI  - 99
IP  - 1
DP  - 2021 Jan 1
TI  - Feed intake and feeding behavior traits for gestating sows recorded using 
      electronic sow feeders.
LID - 10.1093/jas/skaa395 [doi]
LID - skaa395
AB  - Electronic sow feeding (ESF) systems are used to control feed delivery to 
      individual sows that are group-housed. Feeding levels for gestating sows are 
      typically restricted to prevent excessive body weight gain. Any alteration of 
      intake from the allocated feeding curve or unusual feeding behavior could 
      indicate potential health issues. The objective of this study was to use data 
      recorded by ESF to establish and characterize novel feed intake and feeding 
      behavior traits and to estimate their heritabilities. Raw data were available 
      from two farms with in-house manufactured (Farm A) or commercial (Farm B) ESF. 
      The traits derived included feed intake, time spent eating, and rate of feed 
      consumption, averaged across or within specific time periods of gestation. 
      Additional phenotypes included average daily number of feeding events (AFE), 
      along with the cumulative numbers of days where sows spent longer than 30 min in 
      the ESF (ABOVE30), missed their daily intake (MISSF), or consumed below 1 kg of 
      feed (BELOW1). The appetite of sows was represented by averages of score 
      (APPETITE), a binary value for allocation eaten or not (DA_bin), or the standard 
      deviation of the difference between feed intake and allocation (SDA-I). Gilts 
      took longer to eat than sows (15.5 +/- 0.13 vs. 14.1 +/- 0.11 min/d) despite a lower 
      feed allocation (2.13 +/- 0.00 vs. 2.36 +/- 0.01 kg/d). The lowest heritability 
      estimates (below 0.10) occurred for feed intake traits, due to the restriction in 
      feed allocation, although heritabilities were slightly higher for Farm B, with 
      restriction in the eating time. The low heritability for AFE (0.05 +/- 0.02) may 
      have reflected the lack of recording of nonfeeding visits, but repeatability was 
      moderate (0.26 +/- 0.03, Farm A). Time-related traits were moderately to highly 
      heritable and repeatable, demonstrating genetic variation between individuals in 
      their feeding behaviors. Heritabilities for BELOW1 (Farm A: 0.16 +/- 0.04 and Farm 
      B: 0.15 +/- 0.09) and SDA-I (Farm A: 0.17 +/- 0.04 and Farm B: 0.10 +/- 0.08) were 
      similar across farms. In contrast, MISSF was moderately heritable in Farm A (0.19 
      +/- 0.04) but lowly heritable in Farm B (0.05 +/- 0.07). Heritabilities for DA_bin 
      were dissimilar between farms (Farm A: 0.02 +/- 0.02 and Farm B: 0.23 +/- 0.10) 
      despite similar incidence. Individual phenotypes constructed from ESF data could 
      be useful for genetic evaluation purposes, but equivalent capabilities to 
      generate phenotypes were not available for both ESF systems.
CI  - (c) The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the 
      American Society of Animal Science.
FAU - Vargovic, Laura
AU  - Vargovic L
AD  - Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, A Joint Venture of NSW Department of Primary 
      Industries and the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, 
      Australia.
FAU - Hermesch, Susanne
AU  - Hermesch S
AD  - Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, A Joint Venture of NSW Department of Primary 
      Industries and the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, 
      Australia.
FAU - Athorn, Rebecca Z
AU  - Athorn RZ
AD  - Australian Pork Limited, Barton Australian Capital Territory, Kingston Australian 
      Capital Territory, Australia.
FAU - Bunter, Kim L
AU  - Bunter KL
AD  - Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, A Joint Venture of NSW Department of Primary 
      Industries and the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, 
      Australia.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PL  - United States
TA  - J Anim Sci
JT  - Journal of animal science
JID - 8003002
SB  - IM
MH  - Animal Feed/analysis
MH  - Animals
MH  - Appetite
MH  - *Eating
MH  - Electronics
MH  - *Feeding Behavior
MH  - Female
MH  - Phenotype
MH  - Swine
PMC - PMC7799585
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - appetite
OT  - gestation
OT  - group-housing
OT  - heritability
OT  - sow health
EDAT- 2020/12/15 06:00
MHDA- 2021/02/16 06:00
PMCR- 2020/12/13
CRDT- 2020/12/14 11:02
PHST- 2020/07/28 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2020/12/10 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2020/12/15 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2021/02/16 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2020/12/14 11:02 [entrez]
PHST- 2020/12/13 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 6032286 [pii]
AID - skaa395 [pii]
AID - 10.1093/jas/skaa395 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - J Anim Sci. 2021 Jan 1;99(1):skaa395. doi: 10.1093/jas/skaa395.