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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
A note on the effect of gestation housing environment on approach test measures in gilts.
Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2003 | No Comments
Welfare of gilts housed either in indoor or outdoor was tested by human approach test that was used to identify problems in human-animal interactions. Sixteen gilts were housed outdoor and eight gilts indoor for 30-44 days before the test started. The indoor system was more space limited and thermally controlled and had human contact about 15 min daily during cleaning out. The outdoor system was more extensive, had much greater space accessible, not thermally controlled, and had human contact during feeding and cleaning period daily that lasted about 1 hr. At testing, each gilt was moved into a test arena. After 2 min familiarization period, an unfamiliar human entered the test pen and stood motionless for 3 min against the wall and then approached the gilt and touched her snout. Throughout the experimental period, heart rate, behaviour and sound within the test arena were recorded. Outdoor gilts had lower heart rates and performed fewer vocalizations and less locomotor behaviour over the 3 min test period. Outdoor gilts tended t be slower to approach the human, but then took less time to make physical contact (3.3 vs. 52.7 s). The results indicated that the human approach test could not approve that outdoor gilts were more fearless than indoor gilts. The authors suggested that when using human approach test to assess animal welfare on farm, systems differences should be taking into account.
Changing concepts of farm animal welfare: Bridging the gap between applied and basic research
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On one hand, the advancement of animal welfare science seems to be a slow process; on the other hand, quick solutions to animal welfare issues tend to result when legislative bodies become involved. The ‘quick fix’ approach to animal welfare can be dangerous. It can result in research that is too narrow, where scientists do not consider the whole picture. The difficulty in defining animal welfare has led to many definitions and concepts being developed. Some definitions have removed important components that are difficult to measure, such as feelings, emotions and consciousness. These definitions tend to focus on animal health and biological functioning as measures of animal welfare. Animal welfare becomes easier for scientists to measure, but the results do not address the concerns of the general public, which tend to be focused on feelings and emotions. Currently, validation of welfare indicators is lacking. If the focus is on biological functioning, must show that this is related to suffering. There is also a lack of using health problems as indicators of welfare, which are easily validated. For example, lameness is obviously linked to pain, so welfare could be compared in different housing systems based on this measure. Different housing systems are difficult to assess because there are so many variables that could challenge animal welfare. Two approaches for assessment include: General welfare indicators, or an overall assessment, such as longevity in the system. Another approach is to document the incidence of all the problems in each system and then compare them. However, it is difficult to integrate all the measures of welfare. A new housing system may solve welfare problems, but create others in another area. Therefore, it is difficult to develop an overall welfare score, when measures point in different directions. This problem raises the question of possibly weighting the indicators. However, this must be done objectively either statistically or based on a theoretical model. The focus may turn towards using critical measures or solving the problems associated with each housing system, as opposed to attempting to assess overall welfare. There needs to be more focus on the variation that exists within a particular housing system (usually due to different management factors), not just between systems. There also needs to be a better understanding of the biological basis of behavioural, physiological and immunological responses that are used as indicators of welfare. A single definition or concept of welfare may never be achieved; but that should not deter the effort to improve it for animals. Perhaps, instead of a single concept, multiple concepts need to be considered.
Animal-based measures for the assessment of welfare state of dairy cattle, pigs and laying hens: Consensus of expert opinion
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Animal welfare experts participated in the development of animal-based measures that could be used as indicators of welfare status. The objective was to use a Delphi technique to create a consensus among experts about welfare measures about the animal, as opposed to measures about the animal’s environment. The experts responded to two questionnaires. There was consensus among the experts that observations of health status, behaviour and examination of health records would provide ample information about welfare states. This information would indicate how well the animal is coping with the environment and management system in which it lives. The important welfare indicator identified for cattle and pigs was lameness and for laying hens was feather condition. The results of this study assisted in the development of protocols to assess the welfare of dairy cattle, pigs, and laying hens.
The effect of breed on the development of adverse social behaviours in pigs.
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Harmful social behaviour, particularly tail-biting, has been and continues to be a common problem on pig farms. While there have been many studies into external factors that may lead to the development of tail-biting, there has been very little research into the influence of the genetic makeup of the pig in the development of tail-biting. The aim of the current experiment was to investigate the effect of breeds to perform harmful social behaviour, in particular tail-biting. Observations were made on three breeds (Large White (LW), Land Race (LR) and Duroc (DR) with 100 pigs per breed. DR pigs tended to direct more total harmful social behaviour towards pen mates than the other breeds. In particular, DR were observed in more total pig-directed biting of pen mates than LR and LW. LR pigs bit the ears of pen mates less often than LW and DR. Overall, the significant breed differences in this experiment indicate some genetic contribution to expression of harmful social behaviour. This is being examined in more detail in a current long-term heritability study.
The Changing World of Genomics and its Impact on the Pork Chain
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The increasing availability of genetic information (thanks to the sequencing of the humane genome) offers new options for animal improvement. It will no longer be necessary to rely solely on phenotypic (visual or measurable characteristics) in order to obtain desirable genetics. Instead, individual genes can be identified and manipulated to a producers liking. Genes and have already been identified that impact growth and backfat, litter size, disease resistance, lean percentage and meat quality. In addition, DNA “fingerprints” provide ways to verify traceability from the plate to the farm. This new information will provide the means to better influence traits beyond the cost of production providing benefits throughout the pork chain. Genomics should help the industry respond more rapidly to the changing demands of consumers.
Housing pigs in large social groups: a review of implications for performance and other economic traits.
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Large group sizes (50 – 2000 pigs) are an increasingly common feature of pig production. It has been associated with greater efficiency of building space use, improved mechanization and reduced labour input per pig. However the economic and animal welfare disadvantages have not been adequately addressed. In this review the implications of group size (range 3 – 120 pigs) for growth performance are quantified using regression analysis of data from 20 earlier studies and almost 22,000 animals. The relationships between group size and immunocompetence, clinical health status, within-group variation in growth rate, carcass characteristics, the occurrences of vices and reproductive performance are reviewed in this paper. A significant, negative, approximately linear relationship in average daily gain (ADG) with increases in group size was recorded during the weaner (weaning to 30 kg) and grower (31-68 kg) stages. Weaner stage pigs showed a reduction in food intake that was not present during the grower stage. Consequently the efficiency of growth was compromised during the grower stage. No influence of group size on performance during the finisher stage (>69 kg) was detected. None of the other traits measured were consistently and significantly influenced by changes in group size. A large group size may compromise the growth performance of young pigs, but the long-term consequences for other economically important traits is like to be slight.
Modeling chemical and physical body composition of the growing pig
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RE-Cycle: A Profitable Swine Production System with Zero Waste
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Traditionally, swine production and crop production were tightly integrated. Swine were raised on crop residues, and their manure was a valuable fertilizer. Over the past 40 years, however, both crop producers and swine producers have moved away from this integration in an effort to reduce production costs. Crop producers prefer ‘pure’ fertilizers that are easy and accurate to spread, while swine producers prefer to hold animals in large groups in close proximity to feed mills and slaughter plants. Feed ingredients are often imported from distant regions making it financially prohibitive to return the highly dilute manure to the crop-growing areas. Thus, manure ends up being used locally, sometimes at application rates that exceed crop requirements.
This type of swine production has raised environmental concerns and some environmentalists push for a reintegration of crop and swine production through a return to much smaller, diversified family farms. Although components of the RE-Cycle system can facilitate such a movement, the RE-Cycle system is really meant as a solution for the environmental concerns of very large, integrated swine facilities.
The RE-Cycle system is designed to convert waste into value added products (Figure 1). Fecal material is converted into energy and ash. The energy can be captured in the form of electricity or a liquid fuel such as diesel or ethanol. The sterile ash has been successfully used as a mineral supplement in swine feed, eliminating phosphorus as an environmental concern. Nitrogen is recovered and processed into commercial grade nitrogen fertilizer, eliminating nitrogen as an environmental concern.