Sows that lie on their young, pig ‘crushing’, is a significant cause of pig mortality in current production systems. Although mortality rates of pigs in farrowing crates are lower than mortality rates of pigs in pens, loss due to crushing is still estimated to be between 4.8 and 18%. During the first few days after parturition, pigs are highly attracted to the odor of their dam’s udder. Thus, this research was designed to move the pigs away from the sow by competing with the sow’s udder using a ‘simulated’ udder. Fifteen Yorkshire x Landrace sows and their litters (average 11.4 pigs per litter) were assigned to either a control or an experimental group. The control group had access to a heat lamp, whereas the experimental group had a simulated udder in the crate. Data were collected using video cameras for a 3-d duration at the initiation of farrowing. When a sow stood, data were recorded by 1-min scan samples to record the number of pigs using either the heat lamp or the simulated udder. In addition, stillborn pigs, pig crushing, and death by other means also were recorded. Results indicated that from 12 to 72 h postpartum, excluding 24 to 36 h postpartum, the estimated probability that pigs were in a safe area (simulated udder or heat lamp) was higher for the experimental group than for the control group. During 24 to 36-h period, it was more probable to find pigs on a simulated udder than under only a heat lamp. Stillborn pigs, pig crushing, and death by other means were not different between treatments. The simulated udder drew pigs away from the sow’s udder better than heat lamps alone. Considering these findings, mortality of pigs due to crushing may be decreased substantially using a simulated udder. These results are promising, but further refinement should be done, including improved udder design and investigation of the attractiveness of various stimuli.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sows that lie on their young, pig ‘crushing’, is a significant cause of pig mortality in current production systems. Although mortality rates of pigs in farrowing crates are lower than mortality rates of pigs in pens, loss due to crushing is still estimated to be between 4.8 and 18%. During the first few days after […]<\/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":[4685,8882,10033,13816,12251,16813,26550,15889,2130,19644,4663,5886,103,1468,20007,269,7099,818,606,3874,14784,198,14,12526,33,12542,8384,16262,17743,27282,14980,20982,104,96,24277,20911,4874,52,6053,26232,4176],"class_list":["post-4997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-access","tag-al","tag-arc","tag-ass","tag-born","tag-camera","tag-crush","tag-crushing-in-swine","tag-crushingmortalitypigletspigspig","tag-dd","tag-don","tag-farrow","tag-farrowing","tag-farrowing-crates","tag-gh","tag-heat","tag-landrace","tag-litter","tag-mortality","tag-mortality-rate","tag-ness","tag-odor","tag-pig","tag-pig-crushing","tag-pigs","tag-pigs-in-pen","tag-pigs-in-pens","tag-pl","tag-prod","tag-production","tag-search","tag-simulated-udder-feeders","tag-sow","tag-sows","tag-swine-udder","tag-t","tag-tan","tag-treatment","tag-use","tag-video","tag-yorkshire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997","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=4997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}