Decision support system with semantic model to assess the risk of tail biting in pigs: 2. 'Validation'

Tail biting is a multifactorial problem with important welfare as well as economic consequences. Different stakeholders in the pig production chain, such as farmers, consumers and policy makers are interested in the level of tail biting, because tail biting may affect productivity, profit and animal welfare. To help assess the extent to which a housing system is at risk with respect to tail biting we constructed a computer-based decision support system called PIGTAIL. For 'validation' the model was run on 50 treatments, i.e. `housing systems' described in 12 scientific papers. Of 77 pairwise comparisons of these `housing systems' 63 comparisons were in accordance with PIGTAIL's predictions (sign test, P < 0.05). From this we conclude that PIGTAIL may be a useful tool in assessing the risk for tail biting in pigs. Further validation of the model is required. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.