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Review
. 2020 Mar;14(3):570-587.
doi: 10.1017/S1751731119001940. Epub 2019 Aug 22.

Review: Early life predisposing factors for biting in pigs

A Prunier  1 , X Averos  2 , I Dimitrov  3 , S A Edwards  4 , E Hillmann  5 , M Holinger  6 , V Ilieski  7 , R Leming  8 , C Tallet  1 , S P Turner  9 , M Zupan  10 , I Camerlink  11
Affiliations
Review

Review: Early life predisposing factors for biting in pigs

A Prunier et al. Animal. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

The pig industry faces many animal welfare issues. Among these, biting behaviour has a high incidence. It is indicative of an existing problem in biters and is a source of physical damage and psychological stress for the victims. We categorize this behaviour into aggressive and non-aggressive biting, the latter often being directed towards the tail. This review focusses specifically on predisposing factors in early life, comprising the prenatal and postnatal periods up to weaning, for the expression of aggressive and non-aggressive biting later in life. The influence of personality and coping style has been examined in a few studies. It varies according to these studies and, thus, further evaluation is needed. Regarding the effect of environmental factors, the number of scientific papers is low (less than five papers for most factors). No clear influence of prenatal factors has been identified to date. Aggressive biting is reduced by undernutrition, cross-fostering and socialization before weaning. Non-aggressive biting is increased by undernutrition, social stress due to competition and cross-fostering. These latter three factors are highly dependent on litter size at birth. The use of familiar odours may contribute to reducing biting when pigs are moved from one environment to another by alleviating the level of stress associated with novelty. Even though the current environment in which pigs are expressing biting behaviours is of major importance, the pre-weaning environment should be optimized to reduce the likelihood of this problem.

Keywords: aggression; oral manipulation; pre-weaning; swine; tail biting.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Targets of biting and main motivations of pigs to bite.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of the effects of prenatal and pre-weaning environments of pigs on the occurrence of their biting behaviours later in life. When at least five studies are available, the arrows are drawn with a thick line. Signs above the arrows indicate that there is at least one study showing that the considered factor increases (+), has no effect (0) or decreases (−) the occurrence of biting. A question mark indicates that there is no information due to a lack of published studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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