Effect on Feeding Behaviour and Growing of Being a Dominant or Subordinate Growing Pig and Its Relationship with the Faecal Microbiota
Author
Zigovski, Gustavo
Batista Costa, Leandro
Rio-López, Raquel
Clavell-Sansalvador, Adrià
Publication date
2024-06-27ISSN
2076-2615
Abstract
Pigs are a social species, and they establish hierarchies for better use of resources and to reduce conflicts. However, in pig production, the opportunities for growth can differ between dominant and subordinate animals. In the present study, a system was tested to perform a dominant versus subordinate test in growing pigs to investigate how the hierarchy affects feeding behaviour, growth, and gut microbiota assessed in faeces. Sixty-four animals housed in eight different pens were used, with four castrated males and four females in each one, weighing 18 kg at arrival and maintained during the whole growing period, until 140 kg. Three stool samples were obtained from the animals directly from the anus to avoid contamination of the faeces 58, 100, and 133 days after the start of the study to investigate the microbiota composition. The dominant animals had higher gains during the growing period than the subordinates. In addition, they were performing more visits to the feeder throughout the day. Differential abundance patterns were observed in five bacterial genera, with Oliverpabstia, Peptococcus, and Faecalbacterium being more abundant in dominant animals and Holdemanella and Acetitomaculum being overrepresented in subordinate ones. This microbial biomarker accurately classified dominant versus subordinate groups of samples with an AUC of 0.92.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
636 - Animal husbandry and breeding in general. Livestock rearing. Breeding of domestic animals
Pages
17
Publisher
MDPI
Is part of
Animals
Citation
Ochoteco-Asensio, Juan, Gustavo Zigovski, Leandro Batista Costa, Raquel Rio-López, Adrià Clavell-Sansalvador, Yuliaxis Ramayo-Caldas, and Antoni Dalmau. 2024. “Effect on Feeding Behaviour and Growing of Being a Dominant or Subordinate Growing Pig and Its Relationship with the Faecal Microbiota.” Animals 14 (13). doi:10.3390/ani14131906.
Grant agreement number
MICINN/Programa Estatal de I+D+I orientada a los retos de la sociedad/PDC2021-121269-I00/ES/VALIDACION DE INDICADORES FECALES DE BIENESTAR ANIMAL EN CERDOS/
Program
Benestar Animal
Genètica i Millora Animal
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2759]
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/