Why do some farmers cut off their pigtails?

Why do some farmers cut off their pigtails?

Save feed and increase daily weight gain. The role of the pig's tail is to drive away mosquitoes, flies and other games. Although it has little effect, the energy consumed by wagging the pig's tail every day accounts for 15% of the daily metabolic energy, which virtually causes feed waste. If this part of energy is used for fat deposition, it can increase the daily weight gain by 2%-3% and save feed.

Reducing tail biting is a vicious habit of pigs. The reason is complicated. Cutting off the pig's tail can effectively control the disease According to statistics, tail biting in the same group can generally reach 20%-30%. Because of this disease, the pig's diet and disease resistance are reduced, and it is easy to be infected with necrotic bacilli, staphylococcus and streptococcus, which greatly reduces the production performance of pigs.

Reducing the mortality rate of piglets can improve the survival rate of litter after tail cutting, because nursing sows may inadvertently hold down the tail of piglets, making them unable to move, and piglets will not try to get rid of it, and some will even die. Some sows have a bad habit that can be avoided by cutting their tails.

By improving carcass quality, intercostal fat deposition increased, muscle fibers became thinner, chewing resistance decreased, palatability increased, and slaughter rate increased by 4%-5%.

What's the difference between a pig with a cut tail and a pig without a cut tail?

Tail cutting has at least two advantages:

First, a short tail can reduce energy loss and is beneficial to the growth of pigs;

Second, it can better avoid mutual harm between pigs. When the captive pigs are large, the pig's long tail can easily attract the attention of other pigs and attract them to chase and bite. If a pig's tail is bitten and bleeds, the smell of blood will attract more pigs to chase and bite more crazily, which will endanger the life of the attacked pig in serious cases;

Cut the pig's tail short, and generally this will not happen. In addition, it would be better to clean pigs without the long hair on their tails. Mr. Guo also said that many people know that piglets who do not intend to cultivate breeding pigs have to mow the grass when they grow to a certain extent; Compared with mowing pigs, cutting off a pig's tail cannot be said to be harmful at all. Therefore, many pig farmers will help pigs grow by cutting off their tails.