Does the location of enrichment material affect behavior and dirtiness in growing female pigs?
View/Open
Publication date
2018-03-15ISSN
1088-8705
Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate if female growing pigs spend similar amounts of time exploring a wooden stick as they do exploring enrichment material regardless of its proximity to the feeder. Forty-eight pigs aged 18 to 26 weeks allocated to 16 pens with three pigs per pen were studied. Fifty percent of the pens had a wooden stick beside the feeder, and the rest had a similar stick opposite to the feeder. Two observers assessed the pigs by means of scan and focal sampling. The pigs spent more time (p < .0001) exploring the wood during the first week than during the rest of the study (10.9% vs 3.6%). The pigs with the wood close to the feeder spent less (p = .0001) time resting (29.9%) and more (p < .0001) time exploring (6.3%) the wood than did pigs with the wood opposite to the feeder (32.4% and 2.5%, respectively). In conclusion, a wooden stick placed close to the feeder was associated with more exploratory behaviorcompared with a similar stick placed opposite to the feeder.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Accepted version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
636 - Animal husbandry and breeding in general. Livestock rearing. Breeding of domestic animals
Pages
21
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Is part of
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
Citation
Antoni Dalmau, Bruno Areal, Silvana Machado, Joaquim Pallisera & Antonio Velarde (2019). "Does the location of enrichment material affect behavior and dirtiness in growing female pigs?", Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 22:2, 116-126, DOI: 10.1080/10888705.2018.1443816
Program
Benestar Animal
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2831]
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/