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Pegase participate to the European research program PPILOW.

Main goals

• PPILOW will co-create with end-users animal welfare self-assessment tools, innovative breeding and rearing strategies and techniques for improving the welfare of animals by avoiding damage to physical integrity and the elimination of one day-old layer male chicks.
• PPILOW strategies will favour positive behaviours, and improve health and robustness in both poultry and pigs.
• PPILOW innovative techniques will be investigated experimentally and the most promising ones will be tested on-farm.
• Multi-criteria analyses of the most effective breeding and rearing strategies will evaluate their impacts by using the ‘One Welfare’ concept embracing sustainability goals, with specific emphasis on animal and human welfare.
• PPILOW will create economic and business models for the use of the high-quality products generated from the adoption of innovative strategies.
• PPILOW will develop dissemination activities and involve National Practitioner Groups throughout the EU for facilitating change.

Expected outcomes

• Improvement of pig and poultry welfare in EU low-input outdoor and organic systems.
• Increased sustainability of these productions especially in terms of animal welfare and human well-being.
• Reduction in the use of veterinary drugs through the improvement of animal robustness and resilience.
• Identification and selection of valuable genotypes with relevant traits suitable for outdoor systems and with a higher survival rate.
• Innovations for limiting parasite infections through different feeding and management strategies.
• Identification of valuable genotypes and management techniques to limit the risk of boar taint in non-castrated male pigs.
• Promotion of new farming systems valorizing layer male chicks.
• Provision of welfare self-assessment tools.
• Optimization of an in ovo-sexing technique.