Uterine capacity in the pig reflects a combination of uterine environment and conceptus genotype effects

Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2002 | No Comments

The separate and interactive effects of handling and environmental enrichment on the behaviour and welfare of growing pigs.

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The attitude of the stockperson towards animals, and the quality of their husbandry skills are both known to be major determinants of animal behaviour, welfare and productivity. ‘Aversive’ handling such as that associated with the infliction of pain has been found to have a detrimental effect on the performance of growing pigs, whereas ‘pleasant’ handling in the early life environment can influence an animal’s subsequent behavioural development. Such handling can reduce an animal’s fear of human. At the same time barren environments have been implicated in the development of adverse behaviours but provision of environmental enrichment can increase the expression of exploratory behaviour and reduce the animal’s fear of both novel objects and humans. The aim of the current study was to determine the interactive effects of handling and environmental enrichment on the behaviour, performance and welfare of the pigs. In this study groups of finishing pigs were exposed to either minimal or pleasant handling, whilst concurrently being housed in either barren pen or a pen enriched with, either chopped straw, a chain, or a novel and nutritious toy. One group of pigs were handled pleasantly (pleasant group) for a period of 5 minutes per day while the other group received as little stockperson-pig contact as possible (minimal group) for a 10-week period. The stockperson did not enter the minimal group unless it was absolutely necessary. There is some indication that pleasant handling improved the food intake of pigs during week 1 to 5, although it did not increase the daily live weight gain or food conversion ratio. It was found that the effects of handling were, on the whole, not affected by the existence or type of environmental enrichment. Overall, the results of this study suggest that pleasant handling may benefit animal performance in the growing period. Pleasant handling did, however, make groups of animals more difficult to handle during routinely husbandry tasks such as weighing upon testing on week 6 and 10, may be due to that fact that the handling protocol used in this study have imposed too large a degree of human-animal interaction. Further work should be conducted to determine the degree of handling which, improves animal performance but maintains the ease of handling.

PRRS Eradication by Herd Closure

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PRRS can be a very costly disease to any hog producing outfit. One such method to eradicate PRRS is eradication without depopulation based on herd closure (AKA roll over, flow-through, or normal attrition). Knowledge of disease entry must be known so that biosecurity measures can be taken to prevent re-infection. The most common PRRS sources include pigs, semen, transport, people and equipment. Herd closure refers to no entry of replacement animals. This method works to progressively replace positive animals with negative ones and achieve a negative breeding herd over time. This method is really only practical if the barn has an isolated location (to prevent re-infection), strict on-farm biosecurity, semen from a negative boar stud, negative replacement animals, clean trucks, and multi-site production. The first step of this method is to develop an infected, recovered and immune population of reproductive animals. This is done via the gilt pool and should only be done in a stand-alone breeding barn. The second step is to close the barn to replacement animals for 6 months. This can be made feasible by developing an off-site breeding project or introducing a sufficient number of replacements into the herd prior to closure. The third step is to obtain a source of negative replacements (both gilts and semen). Step four includes the introduction of these negative replacements into the farm. The fifth and last step is the elimination of the virus from growing pigs. This requires a depopulation of the nursery to leave a population of PRRS negative animals behind them.

The provision of drinking water to veal calves for welfare purposes.

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Within the veal industry, the calves are commonly only provided with milk replacer and are not given access to water. This study compared the growth performance, behaviour, physiology, forestomach development, abomasal lesions, and meat quality of calves that were only given milk replacer with calves that were given access to water as well as fed milk replacer. Throughout the study, the calves would consume all the water provided, which indicates that the provision of milk replacer alone does not meet the thirst requirements of the calf. The growth performance and health status of the calves were not impacted by the provision of water. There was not a difference between calves given and not given water in terms of feces consistency, animal cleanliness, forestomach development, rumen hairballs and meat color and quality. However, when the calves were provided water, nonnutritive sucking was reduced throughout the entire study, which indicates the water may be a form of environmental enrichment. Calves given water did not refuse feed as frequently. Even though providing calves with water in addition to milk replacer did not have an impact on productivity, there were benefits in terms of welfare, such as reduced nonnutritive oral behaviours and reduced stress.

The use of mirrors for the control of stereotypic weaving behaviour in the stabled horse

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Social isolation in stabled horses is thought to be a contributing factor to weaving, a common locomotor stereotypy. The purpose of this study was to determine if providing mirrors would relieve the sense of social isolation felt by the horses, as they would think their conspecifics were nearby. The behaviour of six horses was recorded for one week prior to the exposure to mirrors. For the five weeks following the initial week of observations, three horses were exposed to mirrors and three were not. The mirrors were then switched, such that the horses that were not exposed to mirrors became exposed, and those that had been exposed were not. The behaviour of the horses was then recorded for five more weeks. The experiment ended with none of the horses being exposed to mirrors and their behaviour was recorded for one week. The results indicated that the mirror significantly reduced the problem behaviours of weaving and nodding, but did not affect the time spent standing active, dozing or ingesting. The use of mirrors to treat weaving and nodding problems appears to be more effective than other treatments including weaving bars.

Does nutritive and non-nutritive sucking reduce other oral behaviors and stimulate rest in calves?

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A common reason for producers not housing bucket-reared calves in groups is the non-nutritive oral behaviours (cross-suckling) that occur immediately following a meal. This study investigated if non-nutritive oral behaviours are associated with a nutritive suckling, if it reduces excitement and if nutritive sucking can be replaced with sucking on a dry teat. First, the differences in behaviour and cardiac activity of calves fed from a bucket versus calves fed through an artificial teat. All calves were individually housed. Calves fed from a bucket had a higher heart rate during their meal and after the meal only these calves were observed bar sucking. Bucket-fed-calves also spent more time licking their pen or their neighbor, laid down more quickly and had less variation in their heart rate. In the second experiment, the calves were individually housed and fed from either a bucket or an artificial teat; however, the effect of access to a non-nutritive teat after the completion of a meal was examined. Calves fed from a bucket, sucked on the non-nutritive teat longer than teat-fed-calves. Access to the non-nutritive teat in bucket-fed-calves also reduced the amount of time the calves spent nibbling at parts of the pen and the calves would lie down quicker. The third experiment the calves were either fed from a bucket or an automatic teat feeder system, but both feeding treatments were now housed in groups. Initially when the bucket-fed-calves were one month old they spent more time nibbling at parts of the pen, however, by three months of age, they reduced the amount of time they spent nibbling and cross-suckling. The calves that were bucket-fed consumed more milk, which resulted in them gaining more weight. When calves are housed individually, the calves perform fewer non-nutritive oral activities and are much calmer when they are fed from an artificial teat. Also by providing bucket fed calves with access to a non-nutritive artificial teat after individually calves have finished feeding can compensate for the lack of nutritive sucking. When calves are housed in groups, an automatic teat feeder does not completely satisfy the calves desire to suckle. Regardless of housing, the provision of an artificial teat during feeding did not improve the growth rate of the calves.

Comprendre la rA

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La rA

Effect of Dietary Fibre on the Behaviour and Health of the Restricted Fed Sow

Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles, Welfare by admin on May 26, 2001 | No Comments

Gestating sows are often fed a restricted diet prior to farrowing to keep their body condition stable; however, the reduced diet often does not provide feelings of satiation. This can result in stereotypic, oral, and/or aggressive behaviours, and fails to provide sows with the freedom of normal behaviour (foraging). Providing a higher fibre diet, or additional high fibre feed can satisfy hunger, and reduce unwanted feeding behaviours. When fed a high fibre diet it was found sows spent an increased amount of time lying down, and total time spent on stereotypic behaviours was reduced. Lower pariety sows were more likely to reduce stereotypic behaviours, and the inclusion of straw reduced the behaviours further. High fibre diets increased time spent eating – partially because the sows spent more time masticating. As well, there was a lower feed intake rate and a lower feeding motivation. Aggression severity has been reportedly reduced with a high fibre diet, but aggression around the feed and any substrate can still persist. The effect of high fibre diets on farrowing is still debatable. There have been studies showing increased time lying on side, and increased prolactin levels, but no overall effect on piglet survival,weight,  litter size, or reduction of agalactia. High fibre diets do seem to increase feed intake during lactation, and increased digestibility of feed stuff. High fibre diets seem to provide some benefits on a nutritional level, but definitely help sows to eat closer to satiation. This helps to reduce stereotypic behaviours, express foraging behaviour, and improve sow welfare.

A note on the effect of isolation during testing and length of previous confinement on locomotor behaviour furing open-field test in dairy calves.

Posted in: Welfare by admin on January 1, 2001 | No Comments

Open-field test is used to measure the effect of housing and handling on emotional reactivity. This study investigated firstly if confined calves perform more locomotor behaviour when open-field tested in pairs than when tested individually, and secondly if length of confinement affects the build-up of motivation to perform locomotor behaviour. In the first experiment, 14 calves were open-field tested on two successive days either individually or as a pair. Calves walked more and performed more locomotor play when tested in pairs, suggesting that it may be appropriate to avoid isolation when aiming to measure the effects of confinement on locomotor behaviour. In the second experiment, in each of three successive weeks, 24 calves had access to an exercise arena for 45 min daily on three successive days either: 1) the first 3 days, 2) the third, fourth and fifth day, or 3) the fourth, fifth and sixth day. On the seventh day the calves were released into the arena for 10 min of open-field test. Calves performed more locomotor play, and they trotted more after 3 days without access to the arena than after 1 or 0 days, suggesting that in calves the motivation to perform locomotor play and trotting increases with length of confinement.

Solving return-to-sensibility problems after electrical stunning in commercial pork slaughter plants.

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Case studies of six federally inspected pork slaughter plants were conducted to determine the causes and solutions for problems with return-to-sensibility in pigs after electrical stunning. Pigs were held in a V-shaped restrainer conveyor and stunned with a manually applied head-to-body electrical stunner. Within each plant, 100-200 pigs were scored based on stunner positioning, squealing when stunner was applied, and signs of insensibility. Spontaneous eye blinking after stunning (which indicates the pig is beginning to return to sensibility or that insufficient amperage was used) ranged from 0.5 to 7 percent. Signs of possible return-to-sensibility disappeared before bleeding pigs reached the scalding tub. Eye blinking was eliminated by improving bleeding practices, redesigning the stunner operator’s work station to facilitate proper placement of the stunner, redesigning the head electrode to improve proper placement, reducing line speed, improving initial contact of the stunner, and increasing amperage (that was too low for sows). Correct electrode placement, appropriate amperage, and bleeding procedures need to be monitored to ensure the pig is rendered insensible. It is possible to correct problems with electrical stunning, but the procedures need to be monitored. Spontaneous eye blinking (without touching the eye) is recommended for evaluating return-to-sensibility problems under field conditions.