Assessing and Improving Animal Welfare Using Applied Ethology.

The papers in this Special Issue, entitled "Editorial Board Members' Collection Series: Behaviour, Applied Ethology and Welfare of Farmed Animals", bring to the forefront empirical data and theoretical discussions that contribute to the discussion of contemporary issues, from environmental enrichment to improvements in animal welfare, the intensification of animal rearing systems, and innovations like virtual fencing and dietary adjustments to improve animal health and welfare in organic systems [...

Erratum: Aluwé, M. et al. Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets. 2020, , 1758.

The authors wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...

Social Network Analysis of Agonistic Behaviour and Its Association with Economically Important Traits in Pigs.

Aggression behaviour has several negative consequences on the performance and welfare of pigs. Here, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach was employed to (1) identify individual traits that describe the role of each animal in the aggression; (2) investigate the association of these traits with performance and feeding behaviour traits. The study was conducted on 326 Duroc pigs reared in 29 pens.

Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets.

Surgical castration of piglets without pain relief is still common practice in many countries. Possible alternatives for surgical castration are application of pain relief or anaesthesia or production of boars (entire males) and immunocastrates. Each of these alternatives faces advantages and disadvantages which may result in different citizen attitudes and consumers acceptability.

Genetic parameters of sow feed efficiency during lactation and its underlying traits in a Duroc population.

As a result of the genetic selection for prolificacy and the improvements in the environment and farms management, litter size has increased in the last few years so that energy requirements of the lactating sow are greater. In addition, selection for feed efficiency of growing pigs is also conducted in maternal lines, and this has led to a decrease in appetite and feed intake that is extended to the lactation period, so the females are not able to obtain the necessary energy and nutrients for milk production and they mobilize their energetic reserves. When this mobilization is excessive, reproductive and health problems occur which ends up in an early sow culling.

Effect of feed restriction on the environmental variability of birth weight in divergently selected lines of mice.

Background: Selection of mice for decreased environmental variability of birth weight has achieved higher survivability and larger litter size as a correlated response to canalized selection, which suggests higher welfare and robustness, and animals that are more homogeneous. However, in these studies, animals were not exposed to an environmental challenge. To demonstrate the advantages of this mouse line with a low environmental variability of birth weight, animals from two divergent lines (high and low variability of birth weight) were subjected to feed restriction.

Use of group records of feed intake to select for feed efficiency in rabbit.

Models for genetic evaluation of feed efficiency (FE) for animals housed in groups when they are either fed ad libitum (F) or on restricted (R) feeding were implemented. Definitions of FE on F included group records of feed intake ( ) and individual records of growth rate (G ) and metabolic weight (M ). Growth rate (G ) as FE measurement on R was used.

Rabbit Microbiota Changes Throughout the Intestinal Tract.

To gain insight into the importance of carefully selecting the sampling area for intestinal microbiota studies, cecal and fecal microbial communities of Caldes meat rabbit were characterized. The animals involved in the study were divided in two groups according to the feed intake level they received during the fattening period; ( = 10) or restricted to 75% of intake ( = 11). Cecum and internal hard feces were sampled from sacrificed animals.

Longitudinal analysis of direct and indirect effects on average daily gain in rabbits using a structured antedependence model.

Background: Indirect genetic effects (IGE) are important components of various traits in several species. Although the intensity of social interactions between partners likely vary over time, very few genetic studies have investigated how IGE vary over time for traits under selection in livestock species. To overcome this issue, our aim was: (1) to analyze longitudinal records of average daily gain (ADG) in rabbits subjected to a 5-week period of feed restriction using a structured antedependence (SAD) model that includes IGE and (2) to evaluate, by simulation, the response to selection when IGE are present and genetic evaluation is based on a SAD model that includes IGE or not.

Sexually dimorphic tibia shape is linked to natural osteoarthritis in STR/Ort mice.

Objectives: Human osteoarthritis (OA) is detected only at late stages. Male STR/Ort mice develop knee OA spontaneously with known longitudinal trajectory, offering scope to identify OA predisposing factors. We exploit the lack of overt OA in female STR/Ort and in both sexes of parental, control CBA mice to explore whether early divergence in tibial bone mass or shape are linked to emergent OA.

Interaction of direct and social genetic effects with feeding regime in growing rabbits.

Background: Most rabbit production farms apply feed restriction at fattening because of its protective effect against digestive diseases that affect growing rabbits. However, it leads to competitive behaviour between cage mates, which is not observed when animals are fed ad libitum. Our aim was to estimate the contribution of direct ([Formula: see text]) and social ([Formula: see text]) genetic effects (also known as indirect genetic effects) to total heritable variance of average daily gain ([Formula: see text]) in rabbits on different feeding regimens (FR), and the magnitude of the interaction between genotype and FR (G × FR).

Evaluation of candidate systems for mass trapping against Ceratitis spp. on La Réunion island.

Background: Two Ceratitis spp. coexist on the island of La Réunion, Ceratitis rosa (Karsch) and C. capitata (Wiedemann).

Formation of tetracycline degradation products in chicken and pig meat under different thermal processing conditions.

Tetracycline (TC) and 4-epitetracycline (4eTC) degradation, as well as anhydrotetracycline (ATC) and 4-epianhydrotetracycline (4eATC) formation, has been evaluated in thermally treated chicken breast, pig loin, and pig loin with added back-fat. Samples containing TC and 4eTC residues were submitted to microwave or boiling heating, extracted with a mixture of McIlvaine buffer/methanol (75:25), and analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection on a phenyl-hexyl reverse phase chromatographic column. The formation of ATC and 4eATC, as well as of two unidentified compounds, was described for the first time in edible meat samples submitted to mild thermal treatments, similar to those applied at home to cook foods.