Abstracts - Management

Females had a higher rate of permanence in the production system and low birth weight piglets had lower colostrum intake.

An added aroma increased pigs’ exploration behaviour towards the foam, and thus could serve as a distraction when inside a confined foam box.

The study suggests lavender essential oil may improve the welfare of growing pigs. Inhalation of lavendar reduced the nasal microbiome diversity.

An hourly feeding regime could optimize sow productive performance, body condition, milk yield, welfare, and piglet growth in swine production.

Primiparous sow aggression may be reduced by increasing space allowance during gestation with social training during the growing period.

Administering a second iron injection resulted in greater hemoglobin at weaning and the end of the nursery as well as improved growth performance from weaning to the end of study weight and increased carcass weight at slaughter.

The frequency of farrowing assistance in sows varied among herds and was influenced by parity number.

The increases in litter size and piglet survival rates due to balanced breeding policies lead to reduced total numbers of dead piglets coinciding with a certain pig production volume.

Postpartum administration of meloxicam to sows reduced clinical cases of disease, increased ADG in pigs, and increased carcass weight at slaughter.

Dominance rank of an individual can be estimated according to the feeding order, body weight or parity if there is enough variability in the group.

Biological sex mediates, at least in part, the physiological response to heat stress.

Frequent emission of short sounds can reduce time spent sleeping and cause behavior changes. However, gestating sows can habituate to the sound stimuli and return to normal behavior.

Enrichment did not enhance the speed of recovery from challenges in pigs, although there were indications of reduced stress

The provision of nesting material to sows prior to farrowing can increase sow maternal care traits and piglet performance.

Environmental enrichment with cubes appears to have the greatest effect when applied post-weaning whereas flavor attractants appear to have the greatest effect when applied both pre- and post-weaning.

Results suggest that drying piglets at birth is an effective method to reduce rectal temperature decline in the early postnatal period, especially for low birth weight piglets.

The use of cortisone and the estimation of 11β-HSD type 2 activity in hair is recommended instead of using hair cortisol concentrations alone.

Results indicate that the pain-related behaviors in pigs from the UPAPS have different statistical weights.

Early intermittent neonatal maternal separation created stress and affected the growth performance of piglets during suckling. However, the growth rate was improved by compensatory measures during late weaning.

Findings may explain numerically lower pregnancy and farrowing rates in sows mixed two days post-service.

The jute material and piglet nests positively impacted sow welfare and piglet measures but did not translate into improved piglet survival.

These findings highlight the complexities involved when forming social preferences and present a platform for further exploring the motivations for preferential associations among intensively farmed pigs.

Heritability estimates for all studied traits suggest they could be suitable as a method of phenotyping aggression and fear/boldness for genetic selection purposes.