A multi-population survey on swine feeding behavior with electronic feeding devices

Abstract

Abstract. In this study, we used electronic feeding station observations of pigs to investigate their growth performance and feeding behavior. These pigs were raised in Xinda Livestock Company Ltd. in Henan, China, and followed the Chinese directive for the protection of farm animals. Electronic feeding stations are often used in pig breeding and for identifying loci associated with feed consumption. Moreover, they can also provide much valuable information on pig behavior that could be directly used to improve production efficiency. This study involves three different pig population feeding-intake data from 383 Yorkshire, 243 Landrace and 197 Duroc breeds to investigate their growth performance and feeding behavior. Similar patterns of growth performance (slow-fast-slow) were observed in the three breeds, while the Duroc have a slightly faster average growth rate throughout the whole test period. Study of the number of visits to the feeding station over 24 h detected two peaks of feeding intake activity at 08:00-09:00 and 14:00-15:00. During these two peak feeding times, lower feed intake and less occupation time were observed, implicating fiercer competition at these time periods. The effective intake time for Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire populations was 19, 16 and 19 min, respectively, suggesting that the ultimate feed intake time for each individual can be set up to 20 min for each visit. Studies on the ADFI (average daily feed intake) showed a significant difference (P value = 0.000009) between seasons and consistent patterns for these three breeds. The present study provides a detailed survey on pig feed intake behaviors across different populations and feeding seasons.

Circadian rhythms and diurnal patterns in the feed intake behaviour of growing-finishing pigs

“…one pig round in one fattening farm). It should be noted that the feeding behaviour of pigs at the daily level is known to be influenced by many environmental and pig factors, such as feed(er) type 72 , lighting regime 40 , season 73 , pig gender 74 and breed 67 , 75 , an influence that is likely to extrapolate to diurnal feeding behaviour. Future research should explore to what extent such environmental and pig factors influence the individual and temporal differences in pig circadian rhythms and diurnal patterns in feed intake.…”

Cleansing data from an electronic feeding station to improve estimation of feed efficiency

“…Figure 6 shows the histograms of the final fattening mass before and after cleansing. The study by Xin et al (2016), in which Landrace pigs are monitored over three fattening periods, establishes an average final mass of the animals that does not exceed 140 kg, so 143.7 kg was considered an adequate limit that includes a safety margin.…”

Modelagem matemática e sistemas inteligentes para predição do comportamento alimentar de suínos nas fases de crescimento e terminação

“…Foi observado picos de TM pela manhã, próximo aos encontrados por Xin et al (2016) das 8h às 9h. Entretanto, ao analisar o período da tarde, os picos foram diferentes aos encontrados pelos mesmos autores, nesse caso, entre às 16h e 18h.…”

“…Os Grupos 2, 6 e 10, devido a um menor número de animais agrupados e o comportamento alimentar ao longo do dia, ficou evidente a dominância desses grupos em relação aos demais. Sendo os Grupos 2 e 6 os animais que passam maior parte do tempo no comedouro nos principais horários observados por Xin et al (2016) e representam os animais dominantes, visto que são aqueles que gastam maior tempo em alimentação e são os primeiros a se alimentarem nos horários de pico (HOY et al, 2012).…”