Abstracts - Management

Adding ramps to nursery pig housing is a simple way to speed loading of market hogs, while providing benefits to efficiency and behavior in the nursery.

Pigs exposed to carbon dioxide made more escape attempts but fewer squeals than pigs exposed to nitrous oxide.

Scoring of tail lesions and defining intact tails in undocked pigs at the abattoir.

A 3D machine vision system has the potential to automate tail posture detection and provide early warning of tail biting on farm.

Sows that had a good relationships with their handler tended to have more total and weaned pigs. Weaning performance was better for farmers who valued good animal-human relationships.

Sorting piglets by birth weight can affect colostrum intake and sorting by birth order affects immunocrit levels. Both birth weight and birth order have effects on traits that are important for prenatal growth and survival.

Early development of gilt progeny may be delayed compared with sow progeny and a number of anatomical differences present at birth are also present at weaning.

Gentle handling of growing pigs could reduce their anxiety and increase intimacy between the pigs and handlers. However, it had little effect on pig performance, carcass quality, and meat quality.

A lower frequency of behavioral aversive responses was observed in the intradermal route of vaccine administration group than in the intramuscular group.

Weaning is a critical phase in a pig’s life. Group housing of non-littermates before weaning may favour socialisation and hence reduce weaning stress.

Sow vaccination decreased influenza infections in piglets at weaning. Influenza positive gilts at entry were associated with positive piglets at weaning.

The more straw provided (between 10 and 500 g) the higher the daily weight gain. The feed conversion ratio was not affected by the amount of straw provided.

Transmammary delivery of firocoxib to piglets reduces stress and improves average daily gain after castration, tail docking, and teeth clipping.

Effectiveness of each analgesia drug and drug combination was evaluated using behavioral indicators, vocalization, and facial grimace analysis. All treatment groups with buprenorphine were able to alleviate tail docking-associated pain.

If the farmer could get an alarm when a pen of pigs is at high risk of developing tail damage, the farmer would be able to take timely action to prevent tail damage in specific pens.

Sampling technique validated to monitor PRRSV-2 using serosanguinous exudate or processing fluids (PFs) from tissues obtained during tail docking and castration provides a general framework to interpret PRRSV-2 surveillance program results more accurately.

Gradually weaned pigs performed better around transitions than abruptly weaned pigs and gradual weaning resulted in beneficial long-term effects on behavior.

Caffeine positively affected the vitality of the piglets, as indicated by greater vitality scores than that for the control group.

This study expands the concept of coping style in farm animals, particularly in terms of individual stress reactivity and disease susceptibility, and thus contributes to the understanding of the biology of animal welfare.

Nurse sow strategies do not appear to compromise piglet growth. However, new-born piglets transferred onto sows in late lactation experienced more competition at the udder.

Results show the importance of lactation length on piglets’ BW variability. Weaning at 25.5 d, equivalent to 7 kg BW, optimizes slaughtering pig performance.

No difference was detected between nurse sows and non-nurse sows in body condition or severity of lesions.

Straw in a rack was found to be the best material to meet the behavioural needs of pigs.

We recommend using tightly spaced mesh of horse panels to reduce trap-related injuries and incorporation of trap shrouds to facilitate delivery of chemical immobilization drugs when handling wild pigs.