Legislative and market initiatives are requiring that gestating sows move from individual housing to group settings. Little information is known about coping of individual sows in these more socially complex environments and thus the impact of different behaviors on sow reproductive success was investigated. The movements of 70 sows during periods of reintroduction into large pen gestational housing following insemination was measured using Smartbow indoor positioning technology (Smartbow, Smartbow GmbH, Weibern, Austria) that tracked animal location and accelerations. Principle component analysis (PCA) was used to establish composite variables characterizing each animal’s behavioral response to social reintroduction and revealed the presence of two new variables accounting for over 60 % of the variance in behaviors: one pertaining to total movement and the other pertaining to social dominance/rapid movements. Component scores of total movement predicted measures of reproductive success whereas social dominance/rapid movements predicted piglet birth weight. These findings suggest that differences in behavioral variables as measured by Smartbow’s automated, non-invasive, real time tracking system are correlated with productivity of sows housing in socially complex settings.

立法和市场倡议要求妊娠母猪从个体住房转移到群体环境。在这些社会更为复杂的环境中，关于个体母猪应对的信息知之甚少，因此研究了不同行为对母猪繁殖成功的影响。使用Smartbow室内定位技术（Smartbow，Smartbow GmbH，Weibern，奥地利）测量了在人工授精后重新引入大型笔育房期间的70只母猪的运动，该技术跟踪了动物的位置和加速度。主成分分析（PCA）用于建立表征每只动物对重新引入社会的行为反应的特征的复合变量，并揭示了存在两个新变量，占行为差异的60％以上：一个与总体运动有关，另一个与社会支配/快速运动有关。总运动量的成分分数可预测生殖成功的指标，而社会优势/快速运动则可预测仔猪的出生体重。这些发现表明，通过Smartbow的自动，非侵入式实时跟踪系统测量的行为变量差异与社会复杂环境中的母猪生产能力相关。