Analysis of food intake associated behavioral traits of boars using data from transponder feeding

To analyze the behavior of pigs, a raw dataset of transponder based recording of individual feed intake with observations from 5.931 Pietrain boars was provided by Bundes Hybrid Zucht Programm (BHZP GmbH, Dahlenburg-Ellringen). Primarily, due to possible technically caused errors in automated data collection, a comprehensive plausibility check of the raw dataset was required. Referring to this, 15 criteria were defined to identify unreasonable and inconsistent observations. On the basis of the plausible data, performance and feeding behavior traits were determined. Among these are several innovative behavior traits, which can be used in future studies to analyze the association to other traits, for example the behavior disorder "tail biting". For each trait variance components and heritabilities were estimated from a univariate BLUP animal model. Some of the behavior traits showed high heritabilities, for example the average eating speed with h(2) = 0,58 and the average duration of visit in the automatic feeder with h(2) = 0,49. Genetic and phenotypic correlations were estimated from bivariate BLUP animal models. The traits "average amount of feed per visit", "number of visits per day", and "variability of number of visits per day" showed high genetic and phenotypic correlations. The trait "average eating speed" had a low genetic correlation to daily gain and the feed conversion ratio.