Total lesions were assessed on the front (including head, neck,front legs and shoulders), middle (including the body after the shoulders up to the frontal tip of the hind legs) and rear parts(including the hind legs until the tail) of the piglets on 5 h (day 1),the second day (day 2) and the third day (day 3) after mixing. The score and severity of skin injuries were measured using the modified system of Melotti et al. (2011) (a classification ranging from 0 to 4 as the severity increased). For each area of the body, skin lesions were ranked from 0 to 10 according to severity: A ranking of 0 indicates no lesions, a ranking of 1 indicates ≤5 super ficiallesions (scratches), 2 represents 6–10 superficial lesions or ≤5 deep lesions (evidence of haemorrhage), and so on, while 10 represents≥45 superficial lesions or ≥41 deep lesions