Abstract
Overall activity and behavior are integral components of sows remaining productive in the herd. This investigation studied overall activity of group housed replacement gilts and the heritability of various activity traits. Beginning around 20 wk of age, video recorded data of approximately 75 gilts/group for a total of 2,378 gilts over 32 groups was collected for 7 consecutive d using the NUtrack System, which tracks distance travelled (m), avg speed (m/s), angle rotated (degrees), and time standing (s), sitting (s), eating (s), and laying (s). The recorded phenotypes were standardized to the distribution observed within a pen for each group. The final values used for analysis were the average daily standardized values. Data were analyzed using mixed models (RStudio V 1.2.5033) including effects of sire, dam, dam’s sire and dam, dam’s grandsire and granddam, farrowing group, barn, pen, and on-test date. Sire had an effect on every activity trait P < 0.001), and dam had an effect on average speed (P < 0.001). The dam’s sire had an effect on all activity traits (P < 0.001) and the dam’s grandsire had an effect on average speed (P < 0.001). Heritabilities and variance components of activity traits were estimated in ASReml 4 using an animal model with a two-generation pedigree. Genetic variances are 0.17 +/- 0.029, 0.19 +/- 0.034, and 0.11 +/- 0.024, residual variances are 0.37 +/- 0.023, 0.41 +/- 0.027, and 0.41 +/- 0.022, phenotypic variances are 0.54 +/- 0.018, 0.60 +/- 0.020, and 0.52 +/- 0.016, and heritabilities are 0.32 +/- 0.048, 0.32 +/- 0.049, and 0.21 +/- 0.044 for average speed, distance, and lie respectively. NUtrack offers potential to aid in selection decisions. Given the results presented herein, continued investigation into these activity traits and their association with sow longevity is warranted.
A novel metric of reliability in pressure pain threshold measurement