Belly nosing is a behaviour pattern commonly observed in early-weaned piglets. Although, bell-nosing has been referred to as an indicator of stress, the factors involved in its causation are unknown. The objective of this study was to determine whether the social composition (litter mates vs, mixed litters) and density (0.15 m2 per pig vs. 0.4 m2 per pig) at weaning affected belly-nosing. A total of 144 piglets weaned at 12-14 days of age were used in the experiment. Behaviour was observed for 8 h during day 3, 7, 10, 14, 17, and 21 post-weaning. Feed intake, water intake, and growth rate were determined weekly. Blood was collected on sampled piglets pre-weaning and post weaning. The piglets at high density consumed more feed, had lower plasma cortisol, and were less aggressive than the piglets at low density during the period of 3 wk post weaning. Mixed piglets at high density performed less belly nosing at low density at day 10 post weaning. Since belly nosing was not associated with stress of mixing or crowding, it does not appear to be a behavioural indicator of stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Belly nosing is a behaviour pattern commonly observed in early-weaned piglets. Although, bell-nosing has been referred to as an indicator of stress, the factors involved in its causation are unknown. The objective of this study was to determine whether the social composition (litter mates vs, mixed litters) and density (0.15 m2 per pig vs. 0.4 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[928],"tags":[8882,13816,14319,2938,9344,9699,12283,9690,6904,46,925,20007,158,1374,818,3465,14,126,89,16262,92,110,16451,20911,18011,24994,69,977,3790,6244,15383,3325,77],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-al","tag-ass","tag-bell-nosing","tag-densitymixingpigletspost-weanig-behavioursocial-stress","tag-effect-of-social-stressors-on-belly-nosing","tag-effects-of-social-stressors-on-belly-nosing-behaviour-in-early-weaned-pigletsis-belly-nosing-an-indicator-of-stress","tag-effects-of-social-stressors-on-belly-nosing-behaviour-in-early-weaned-piglets-is-belly-nosing-an-indicator-of-stress","tag-effects-of-social-stressors-on-bell-nosing-behaviour","tag-fee","tag-feed","tag-feed-intake","tag-gh","tag-growth","tag-growth-rate","tag-litter","tag-pea","tag-pig","tag-piglet","tag-piglets","tag-pl","tag-plasma","tag-stress","tag-stressors-prairie","tag-t","tag-tot","tag-usa","tag-water","tag-water-intake","tag-weaned","tag-weaned-pig","tag-weaned-piglet","tag-weaned-piglets","tag-weaning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","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=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}