Science of Ethology – Volume 1, Issue 6

One of the roles we play in raising livestock is that of social managers of the animals. We decide which animals live
together in a group, and when and how the group is formed. In the case of gestating sows, we decide which sows live with each other during their period of gestation. Our default social group, the one that happens if we disregard our role as managers, would be the breeding cohort. This would include all of the animals that were bred during a set period, which on most farms would be a week.

In previous articles, we have discussed the most common social management decisions, which involve sorting the cohort according to one or more of the following criteria: nutritional needs, competitiveness, or experience with the housing system (particularly ESF). The outcome of this sorting would be multiple groups, each of which is more uniform than the original breeding cohort. Another outcome is that the groups are smaller than the cohort as a whole. These groups are often managed as static groups, that is, no animals are added to a group once it has been formed.