The space allowance appropriate for sows in group housing remains scientifically undefined,\u00a0since the social space requirement of a group of animals and the factors which affect this are\u00a0unknown. Eight established groups of six pregnant, multiparous sows were used in a replicated\u00a0Latin Square design of experiment, with 7 day periods, to compare four pen sizes providing 2.0,\u00a02.4, 3.6 or 4.8 m2rsow. For the last 48 h of each 7 day period, a continuous video recording was\u00a0made to determine general behaviour and all social interactions. Time spent rooting increased\u00a0progressively with increasing space allowance, whereas time spent sitting and standing inactive\u00a0were both progressively reduced. The total frequency of social interactions and aggressive
\nbehaviour both increased with decreasing space allowance. The Attack:Retreat ratio was significantly\u00a0higher, and the Avoidance Index significantly lower, in the smallest pen. All body regions\u00a0had the highest count of lesions after sows had been in the smallest pen, with damage levels being\u00a0reduced as pen area increased. Analysis of body lesion scores, combining incidence and severity,\u00a0gave the same treatment effects. In conclusion, the results indicated that a minimum space of\u00a0between 2.4 and 3.6 was necessary in the conditions of this experiment to promote good\u00a0welfare. This result cannot be generalised to situations of different group size, group stability or\u00a0feeding method.<\/p>\n
Sandra Edwards<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The space allowance appropriate for sows in group housing remains scientifically undefined,\u00a0since the social space requirement of a group of animals and the factors which affect this are\u00a0unknown. Eight established groups of six pregnant, multiparous sows were used in a replicated\u00a0Latin Square design of experiment, with 7 day periods, to compare four pen sizes providing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,928],"tags":[26410,640,26701,25681,26416,26096,46,108,7857,27033,26290,26350,26341,26222,26538,18011,26232,27281,26305],"class_list":["post-15205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pork-insight-articles","category-welfare","tag-social-interaction-or-social-interactions","tag-animal","tag-behaviour-of-groups-in-spaces","tag-cosvol","tag-dr-edwards","tag-edwards","tag-feed","tag-feeding","tag-group-housed-sows","tag-group-sows-space","tag-housed-sows","tag-rooting","tag-sandra-edw","tag-sandra-edwards","tag-sandra-edwards-swinre-nutrition-uk","tag-tot","tag-video","tag-welfare","tag-www-prairie-swine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15208,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205\/revisions\/15208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}