Effects of Different Housing Systems during Suckling and Rearing Period on Skin and Tail Lesions, Tail Losses and Performance of Growing and Finishing Pigs

Simple Summary Weaning involves multiple stressors and is one of the most critical periods for piglets. It is known that pigs try to compensate stressful events by different coping strategies that might culminate in the biting of other pigs. The reduction in the number of stressors by optimizing housing conditions might be a way to reduce tail biting, one huge challenge in modern pig production. Since tail docking as a measure to avoid injuries is banned by EU regulations, this study aims to present alternatives to combat tail biting. The present work shows that the group housing of lactating sows and their litters improves pig welfare after regrouping events in terms of skin lesions. Rearing in the farrowing pen with reduced regrouping positively affected the incidence of tail lesions and losses of undocked pigs. Against expectations, free farrowing and group housing systems had no negative impact on later performance during rearing or fattening. Feasible alternatives to stressful weaning and tail-docking are needed to inhibit tail biting. Therefore, we investigated the effects of housing systems for 1106 pigs that were weaned from: (1) conventional farrowing crates (FC), (2) free-farrowing pens (FF), or (3) group housing of lactating sows (GH) into (1) conventional rearing pens (Conv) or (2) piglets remained in their farrowing pens for rearing (Reaf). Tails were docked or left undocked batchwise. All pigs were regrouped for the fattening period. Pigs were scored for skin lesions, tail lesions and losses. After weaning, Conv-GH pigs had significantly less skin lesions than Conv-FC and Conv-FF pigs. After regrouping for fattening, Reaf-GH pigs had significantly less skin lesions than Conv pigs, Reaf-FC and Reaf-FF. The frequency of tail lesions of undocked Conv pigs peaked in week 4 (66.8%). Two weeks later, Reaf undocked pigs reached their maximum (36.2%). At the end of fattening, 99.3% of undocked Conv pigs and 43.1% of undocked Reaf pigs lost parts of their tail. In conclusion, the co-mingling of piglets during suckling reduced the incidence of skin lesions. Rearing in the farrowing pen significantly reduced the incidence of tail lesions and losses for undocked pigs. No housing system negatively affected the performance.