Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Characteristics of organic pig farms in selected European countries and their possible influence on litter size and piglet mortality
INRA, France; UMR PEGASE, France.
INRA, France; Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany.
Agricultural Research Council, Italy.
Newcastle University, United Kingdom.
Show others and affiliations
2014 (English)In: Organic Agriculture, ISSN 1879-4238, E-ISSN 1879-4246, Vol. 4, no 2, p. 163-173Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Better knowledge of piglet losses around birth and during lactation, and the role of litter size, housing and management characteristics, should help to identify critical points and hence to improve the situation in organic pig farms. For this purpose, a project was initiated in five EU countries collecting interview data, measures of animal and housing characteristics and production records. This paper presents results regarding production characteristics from 82 herds. Among them, 42 farms were included in an analysis based on the production records. Based on sows’ housing system during the first 2 weeks after farrowing, farms were classified as “indoor” (n = 49) or “outdoor” (n = 33). For each group, a multiple correspondence analysis and subsequent hierarchical classification were carried out to identify distinct farm categories. In total, 30 variables from the questionnaires and measured characteristics were used after binary transformation when necessary. Three types of indoor farms and two types of outdoor farms were identified. Regarding litter size at birth and weaning, there was no clear difference between all types of indoor farms and one type of outdoor farms, whereas the second type of outdoor farms, that were more “extensive”, had lower performance. Production records showed a detrimental influence of high farm average litter size at birth on piglet mortality and that high-standard deviation in litter size may exacerbate this problem. © 2013, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Netherlands , 2014. Vol. 4, no 2, p. 163-173
Keywords [en]
Housing, Litter size, Management, Organic pig, Piglet mortality
National Category
Engineering and Technology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-45570DOI: 10.1007/s13165-013-0040-4Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84951770022OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-45570DiVA, id: diva2:1456863
Note

Correspondence Address: Prunier, A.; Agrocampus Ouest, UMR1348 PEGASEFrance; email: Armelle.Prunier@rennes.inra.fr

Available from: 2020-08-07 Created: 2020-08-07 Last updated: 2020-08-12Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus
In the same journal
Organic Agriculture
Engineering and Technology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 13 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf