VULVA BITING IN GROUP-HOUSED SOWS - PRELIMINARY-REPORT

The aggressive vice of vulva biting represents a real danger for the concept of group housing of pregnant sows. As it is primarily induced by the sows queuing up at the entrance to the computercontrolled feeding station, efforts were made to reduce the relative importance of this station. Also, the predictability of the feeding systems was improved. Among the entire group of 40 crossbred sows, the forming of subgroups of 10 animals was stimulated. The preliminary results of these actions were a considerable decrease in the incidence of damaged vulvae and a substantially lower number of sows waiting at the feeding station. These observations could not yet be confirmed statistically, but seem sufficiently promising to be published. © 1990.