This study made use of 222 groups of 3 weaner pigs (~ 5 weeks old, ~ 12 kg) and 222 groups of 3 grower pigs (13-14 weeks old, ~ 50 kg). A comparison of 74 different enrichment objects and substrates were presented in four ways, depending on object\/substrate use: 1) substrate in a metal box attached to the pen side, 2) object loose on the floor, 3) object attached to the wall, and 4) object suspended from a metal bracket so that the object appeared at eye or floor level. The aim of this study was to determine which enrichment device characteristics were favored, and which of those favored characteristics were age-dependent. The object interaction for both weaner and grower pigs varied from 0.1-11.9 % on day 1, and from 0.2-9.3 % on day 5. On day 1, growers spent an average of 22.3 % of their active time on object-directed behaviour, while weaners spent an average of 16.4 % of their active time on object-directed behaviour. On day 5, active time spent on object-directed behaviour was 8.6 % for growers, and 7.5 % for weaners. Growers had a tendency to interact with the objects more often than weaners, and had a lower latency to interact with an object than weaners on day 1. The mean length of time spent on object interaction was significantly higher on day 1 than on day 5, and was higher among growers. A pig’s motivation to explore, to forage, and to manipulate objects may explain the reason for objects with characteristics such as ‘ingestible’, ‘odorous’, ‘chewable’, ‘deformable’, and ‘destructible’ to be used so extensively among the pigs. A high interaction (6-9 %) with edible objects validates the statement. Furthermore, objects that were not only ‘chewable’ but ‘odorous’ as well, became even more attractive. Renewing a substrate each day also helped to hold a pig’s interest in the enrichment device. Pigs often lost interest in an object that became soiled, such as objects that were provided loosely on the floor. Presenting substrates and objects in a box reduced this problem. Pigs habituated to some objects as early as 3 days after their initial introduction. Analysis of the data in this study concluded that there were 2 different sets of characteristics required of objects on day 1 (day of object introduction) and day 5, indicating that there was a separation between initially attractive characteristics and characteristics that kept the pigs’ attention over a number of days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This study made use of 222 groups of 3 weaner pigs (~ 5 weeks old, ~ 12 kg) and 222 groups of 3 grower pigs (13-14 weeks old, ~ 50 kg). A comparison of 74 different enrichment objects and substrates were presented in four ways, depending on object\/substrate use: 1) substrate in a metal box […]<\/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":[18799,20378,15358,8882,3948,4564,23694,4171,5326,9622,171,20007,1067,2790,6492,2771,198,3465,15459,14,33,16262,14790,20912,11941,20911,6053,6206],"class_list":["post-5262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-a-systematic-approach-toward-developing-environmental-enrichment-for-pigs","tag-a-systematic-approach-towards-developing-environmental-enrichment-for-pigs","tag-a-systematic-approach-towards-developing-environmental-enrichment-for-pigs-applied","tag-al","tag-behaviourenvironmental-enrichmentpigswelfare","tag-comparison","tag-dir","tag-enrichment","tag-environmental-enrichment","tag-environmental-enrichment-for-pigs","tag-floor","tag-gh","tag-grower","tag-grower-pigs","tag-help","tag-iron","tag-odor","tag-pea","tag-ped","tag-pig","tag-pigs","tag-pl","tag-rene","tag-some","tag-systematic","tag-t","tag-use","tag-weaner-pigs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262","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=5262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}