Hubert Henne - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Hubert Henne

Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Precision livestock farming can combine sensors and complex data to provide a simple score of mea... more Precision livestock farming can combine sensors and complex data to provide a simple score of meaningful productivity, pig welfare, and farm sustainability, which are the main drivers of modern pig production. Examples include using infrared thermography to monitor the temperature of sows to detect the early stages of the disease. To take account of these drivers, we assigned 697 hybrid (BHZP db. Viktoria) sows to four parity groups. In addition, by pooling clinical findings from every sow and their piglets, sows were classified into three groups for the annotation: healthy, clinically suspicious, and diseased. Besides, the udder was thermographed, and performance data were documented. Results showed that the piglets of diseased sows with eighth or higher parity had the lowest daily weight gain [healthy; 192 g ± 31.2, clinically suspicious; 191 g ± 31.3, diseased; 148 g ± 50.3 (p < 0.05)] and the highest number of stillborn piglets (healthy; 2.2 ± 2.39, clinically suspicious; 2.0...

Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics

Improving the immunocompetence towards pathogens represents a desirable objective of breeding str... more Improving the immunocompetence towards pathogens represents a desirable objective of breeding strategies to increase resilience. However, the immune system is complex and the genetic foundation of the underlying components is not yet clarified. In the present study, we focused on 22 blood parameters of 1,144 Landrace (LR) and Large White (LW) piglets at the age of 6–7 weeks. The immune profiles covered immune cells, red blood cell characteristics and cytokines. Genetic parameters based on pedigree information along with possible environmental effects were estimated. Litter effects play an important role in the expression of immune parameters of their young progenies. Hence, litter impacts on the piglet's immune profile including the immune parameters of the dam itself were investigated by different models. To incorporate the complexity of the immune network, the data were further investigated with a principal component analysis. Immune traits showed low to high breed‐specific he...

Additional file 1 Complete GWAS results in Landrace. Significant SNPs in Landrace associated with... more Additional file 1 Complete GWAS results in Landrace. Significant SNPs in Landrace associated with immune relevant traits identified by GWAS. MCHC: Mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration, IL: Interleukin, SSC: Sus Scrofa Chromosome, MAF: Minor allele frequency, *: genome-wide significance, adj. p-value: adjusted p-value after Bonferroni correction, B5: Additionally significant after Bonferroni correction with adjusted p-value <0.05, B10: Additionally significant after Bonferroni correction with adjusted p-value <0.1.

Additional file 2 Complete GWAS results in Large White. Significant SNPs in Large White associate... more Additional file 2 Complete GWAS results in Large White. Significant SNPs in Large White associated with immune relevant traits identified by GWAS. MCHC: Mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration, IFN: Interferon, IL: Interleukin, TNF: Tumor necrosis factor, SSC: Sus Scrofa Chromosome, MAF: Minor allele frequency, *: genome-wide significance, adj. p-value: adjusted p-value after Bonferroni correction, B5: Additionally significant after Bonferroni correction with adjusted p-value <0.05, B10: Additionally significant after Bonferroni correction with adjusted p-value <0.1.

Additional file 2: Chromosome wide significant marker in LW after Bonferroni correction (p

Additional file 1: Chromosome wide significant marker in LR after Bonferroni correction (p

Agriculture, 2021

Monitoring of sows’ health is the key to preventing and controlling diseases in sows, and it guar... more Monitoring of sows’ health is the key to preventing and controlling diseases in sows, and it guarantees optimal rearing conditions for piglets. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the health status of sows shortly after parturition, and to analyze thermographic images of the mammary gland and the sows’ performance. Clinical examination of a total of 513 db.Viktoria hybrid sows was bundled individually using a modified score system. According to this, animals were divided into three health classes: healthy, clinically suspicious, and diseased. Simultaneously, the mammary glands were investigated by infrared thermography. Total born piglets (TBP), number of piglets born alive (NBA), and the daily weight gain of the piglets were significantly lower in the diseased group (p < 0.05). Regarding the results of the thermographic images of the mammary gland, significantly higher mean value of the warmest pixels was found in the diseased group (38.3 °C ± 0.57)...

Theriogenology, 2021

Besides classical semen parameters, semen stress tests (SSTs) are helpful tools to assess the fer... more Besides classical semen parameters, semen stress tests (SSTs) are helpful tools to assess the fertilizing capacity of sperm. However, valid studies on SSTs in relation to fertility are rare because several corrections of common fertility parameters for female and male effects are required. Therefore, over a one-year period, we analyzed semen parameters of 260 ejaculates obtained from 130 Pietrain boars aged between 8 and 9 months in one AI center as well as 1521 corresponding insemination records for these ejaculates. Two consecutive ejaculates (4th and 5th) were collected from each boar and extended in DiluPorc™ BTS. In addition to routine semen evaluation, sperm motility was assessed after heat-resistance test (300 min incubation at 38 °C after seven days storage at 16 °C, HRT) and cold-resistance test (10 min incubation at 38 °C after three days storage at 6 °C, CRT). Generalized linear models (GLMs) were applied to analyze effects for the following predictors of farrowing rate (FR), number of total born (NTB) and live born (NLB) piglets: farm (P = 0.013 [FR], P = 0.001 [NTB], P = 0.023 [NLB]), parity (P = 0.679, P = 0.01, P < 0.001), weekday (P = 0.012, P = 0.08, P = 0.009) and year × season (P < 0.001, P = 0.688, P = 0.574). On boar level, GLMs revealed significant effects on FR, NTB and NLB for the predictors sow (all P < 0.001), total sperm number per dose (P = 0.007, P = 0.002, P < 0.001), total sperm motility (P = 0.002, P = 0.2, P = 0.003) and mitochondrial activity (P = 0.004, P < 0.001, P = 0.002). Moreover, FR and NTB were influenced by membrane integrity (both P < 0.001), FR and NLB by cold-resistance (P < 0.001, P = 0.043), and NTB and NLB by sperm morphology (P = 0.001, P < 0.001) and boar (both P < 0.001). NLB was additionally influenced by heat-resistance (P = 0.004) and farm (P = 0.018) and solely NTB was influenced by sperm output (P = 0.03). Boar and semen related factors explained 9% of the total variation in NTB and 7% of the total variation in NLB. Only 14.2% (n = 37) of the samples were both cold- and heat-resistant (≥65% of motile sperm). Cold- and heat-resistance were dependent factors (Chi-square, P = 0.001) and sperm motility after CRT and HRT showed a moderate positive correlation (rs = 0.40, P < 0.001, Spearman's rho). Finally, ROC curves demonstrated that neither SST can be used as a sole test for predicting the fertilizing capacity of boar ejaculates.

Archives Animal Breeding, 1999

Title ofthe paper: Variation of lean content in pig beilies of dam lines Magnetic resonance imagi... more Title ofthe paper: Variation of lean content in pig beilies of dam lines Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was applied to determine the tissue composition of 157 beilies of castrated male pigs belonging to two dam-lines ofthe German Hybrid Pig Breeding Programme. All pigs were taken from the routine testing scheme. The analysis of carcass traits showed that pigs of line 03 were clearly leaner than those of line 01. Only in backfat thickness no significant difference could be observed. For the belly, a clear difference of 7% was found in percentage of lean. Lean content of the belly was also estimated by means of various multiple regressions using carcass traits. Percentage of lean predicted by the official equation used in German performance testing on the one hand and by means of MRI on the other hand was different particularly in line 03. A correlation of r = 0.67 and r = 0.82 between lean content determined by means of MRI and multiple regression was found for line 01 and line 03, respectively. To study the Variation between sires, variance components were estimated. Differences between sires were higher in lean content of the belly compared to backfat thickness, a trait which has been used in selection for a long time.

Acta veterinaria Scandinavica, Jan 12, 2018

Lawsonia intracellularis is one of the most economically important pathogens in swine production.... more Lawsonia intracellularis is one of the most economically important pathogens in swine production. This study tested the hypothesis that the composition of diets for pigs has an impact on the excretion of L. intracellularis in a natural infection model. Fifty boars (~ 90 kg BW) from a SPF-farm with a strict hygiene and management regime for reducing the spread of an L. intracellularis infection up to the beginning of the final fattening period were transported, regrouped and randomly allotted to groups of five animals each at the research facility. After a 1-week acclimatisation period groups were fed one of five diets 4 weeks before slaughter. These were either a finely ground pelleted diet (FP) or a coarsely ground meal diet (CM), both consisting of wheat (40.0%), barley (39.3%), soybean meal (16.0%), soybean oil (2.0%) and minor components. In the other meal diets parts of wheat, barley and soybean meal were substituted either with 22% cracked corn (CORN), 16.9% dried whey (WHEY) ...

BMC Genetics, 2020

Background Due to ethical reasons, surgical castration of young male piglets in their first week ... more Background Due to ethical reasons, surgical castration of young male piglets in their first week of life without anesthesia will be banned in Germany from 2021. Breeding against boar taint is already implemented in sire breeds of breeding organizations but in recent years a low demand made this trait economically less important. The objective of this study was to estimate heritabilities and genetic relationships between boar taint compounds androstenone and skatole and maternal/paternal reproduction traits in 4′924 Landrace (LR) and 4′299 Large White (LW) animals from nucleus populations. Additionally, genome wide association analysis (GWAS) was performed per trait and breed to detect SNP marker with possible pleiotropic effects that are associated with boar taint and fertility. Results Estimated heritabilities (h2) were 0.48 (±0.08) for LR (0.39 ± 0.07 for LW) for androstenone and 0.52 (±0.08) for LR (0.32 ± 0.07 for LW) for skatole. Heritabilities for reproduction did not differ b...

BMC Genomics

Background In recent years, animal welfare and health has become more and more important in pig b... more Background In recent years, animal welfare and health has become more and more important in pig breeding. So far, numerous parameters have been considered as important biomarkers, especially in the immune reaction and inflammation. Previous studies have shown moderate to high heritabilities in most of these traits. However, the genetic background of health and robustness of pigs needs to be extensively clarified. The objective of this study was to identify genomic regions with a biological relevance for the immunocompetence of piglets. Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS) in 535 Landrace (LR) and 461 Large White (LW) piglets were performed, investigating 20 immune relevant traits. Besides the health indicators of the complete and differential blood count, eight different cytokines and haptoglobin were recorded in all piglets and their biological dams to capture mediating processes and acute phase reactions. Additionally, all animals were genotyped using the Illumina PorcineSNP60v2...