Sow behaviour towards humans during standard management procedures and their relationship to piglet survival

Autor: Hélène Leruste, Dorothée Bizeray-Filoche, Thomas De Bretagne, Bernardus Joop Lensink
Rok vydání: 2009
Předmět:
Zdroj: Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 119:151-157
ISSN: 0168-1591
DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2009.04.007
Popis: Piglet crushing remains a major problem in pig production and is partly related to sow behavioural traits. The sows’ responses to the presence of humans around farrowing could partly contribute to piglet crushing through increased reactivity and getting up and lying down behaviour. The aim of the study was to determine if the sows’ behaviour observed during standard management procedures during gestation and after farrowing can be related with their reproductive performance including crushing levels. One hundred sows originating from a selection unit were observed before expected farrowing on their fear (withdrawal) response to human presence at feeding and their ease of transfer to the farrowing unit. After farrowing, their reaction was observed (latency to change position, number of postural changes) during a 5 min period of piglet handling (tattooing, tail cutting) and through the number of postural changes for the next 3 h. Parity influenced most of the behaviour observed during gestation, but not after farrowing. A high withdrawal response of sows tended to be correlated with higher transfer speed to the farrowing unit (P = 0.10), was correlated with a shorter latency to change position and with more postural changes during piglet handling (P
Databáze: OpenAIRE