Efficient utilization of pen space without adversely affecting the productivity and well-being of pigs is important for pork production. Previous studies on floor space allowance for grower-finisher pigs have been based on production performance (Edwards et al. 1988; Gonyou and Stricklin 1998) without considering other measures of the welfare of pigs. Lack of space may lead to suppression or displacement of one or more activities causing aberrant behaviour and physiological changes leading to poor welfare and economic performance (Petherick 1983). However, how much extra space can be taken away to minimize cost and to ensure efficient space utilization without adversely affecting well-being and production is not yet well understood. Therefore, the space allowance recommended based on conventional space allowance treatments may not be able to ensure both satisfactory levels of production and welfare along with efficient space utilization. Avoiding weight variation at marketing is essential to minimize discounts for pigs (Payne et al. 1999; Brumm et al. 2002). The effect of rearing pigs of unequal weights together on the final weight of pigs and how space allowance can reduce final weight variation are elusive. In this study, it has been hypothesized that the performance and welfare of pigs improve with increasing space allowance. It is also hypothesized that the performance and welfare of pigs improve by allocating pigs of differing body weights to a group rather than allocating pigs of uniform body weight. The average daily gain, pen efficiency and welfare indicators (injury levels, salivary cortisol concentrations and behaviour) of grower-finisher pigs were evaluated in groups of 19 barrows, at four levels of floor space allowances calculated mathematically (area = k \u00d7 BW0.667) using a constant k, (with values 0.027, 0.031, 0.034, and 0.037) for a mean final market weight of 116 kg and in two levels of group weight composition (uniform and varying weights \u2013 based on uniformity and variation of body weights of pigs within a pen at the beginning of the experiment). The corresponding space allowances at the market weight of 116 kg were 0.64, 0.74, 0.81, and 0.88. The data were analyzed using repeated measure ANOVAs and independent sample T tests. The pigs in 0.64 had a lower average daily gain, spent a lower proportion of time lying in preferred areas and had higher total injury scores and higher number of aggressions than those in 0.88 and 0.81. Pigs in 0.64 had higher overall pen efficiency than those in 0.88, 0.81, and 0.74 allowance treatments. Pigs in the varying weight group spent a higher proportion of time lying in preferred areas than the uniform weight group. Pigs in 0.74 and 0.64 spent lower proportion of time lying isolated than pigs in 0.81. The uniform weight group exhibited more exploratory behaviour than the varying weight group. On fully slatted floors, space allotted considering the final market weight of barrows corresponding to k values of 0.037 and 0.034 were better than 0.027 in terms of growth rate and welfare indicators. The results suggest that grouping grower-finishers according to uniformity or variation in body weight may not provide any differential benefit in overall welfare, although a beneficial effect was observed in terms of injury scores, aggression and lying behaviour by increasing space allowance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Efficient utilization of pen space without adversely affecting the productivity and well-being of pigs is important for pork production. Previous studies on floor space allowance for grower-finisher pigs have been based on production performance (Edwards et al. 1988; Gonyou and Stricklin 1998) without considering other measures of the welfare of pigs. Lack of space may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[930],"tags":[88,8882,1465,7321,5117,6784,190,6251,26096,527,1066,9130,13277,171,5329,21941,20007,9413,1067,936,158,1374,13370,10858,1391,2394,3465,63,14,33,16262,1324,4732,17743,27282,1533,803,534,51,6252,20911,4874,1579,14923,14909,18011,52,1300,1055,1301,24218,27281],"class_list":["post-4118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production","tag-aggression","tag-al","tag-average-daily-gain","tag-barrows","tag-body-weight","tag-cos","tag-cost","tag-daily-gain","tag-edwards","tag-efficiency","tag-finisher","tag-finisher-pigs","tag-finishers","tag-floor","tag-floor-space","tag-fully-slatted-floors","tag-gh","tag-gonyou","tag-grower","tag-grower-finisher","tag-growth","tag-growth-rate","tag-ken","tag-mark","tag-market-weight","tag-marketing","tag-pea","tag-performance","tag-pig","tag-pigs","tag-pl","tag-pork","tag-pork-production","tag-prod","tag-production","tag-size","tag-slatted-floor","tag-slatted-floors","tag-space","tag-space-allowances","tag-t","tag-tan","tag-test","tag-the-welfare","tag-the-welfare-of","tag-tot","tag-treatment","tag-uniformity","tag-variation","tag-weight","tag-weight-variation","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118","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=4118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}