A systematic approach towards developing environmental enrichment for pigs

Injurious tail biting in pigs: how can it be controlled in existing systems without tail docking?

“…Manipulable materials which are attractive to pigs as measured by their motivation to access them (Holm et al, 2008;Jensen et al, 2008) or by the time pigs spend interacting with them over a sustained period have the characteristics 'ingestible', 'odorous', 'chewable', 'deformable' and 'destructible' ( Van de Weerd et al, 2003;Studnitz et al, 2007;Van de Weerd and Day, 2009). The opportunity to perform investigation and manipulation behaviours are in themselves important for pig welfare (Studnitz et al, 2007;Van de Weerd and Day, 2009), but here we focus on whether manipulable materials can reduce damaging tail biting apparently by providing an alternative outlet for investigatory behaviour.…”

“…Although pigs may initially interact with these due to their novelty, interest in them usually declines rapidly over a few days (Van de Weerd et al, 2003;Van de Perre et al, 2011). Even a repeating cycle of different objects may not be enough, as re-introduction of the same object after an interval of several weeks is usually not as effective at sustaining interest as a novel object would be ( Van de Perre et al, 2011).…”

“…Hanging objects thus may have potential: in a meta-analysis of the time spent by pigs interacting with enrichment, properties promoting this interaction included enrichments which were suspended and/or deformable (Averós et al, 2010). For example pigs show sustained interest in interacting with destructible ropes (Trickett et al, 2009), or hanging objects with an edible component ( Van de Weerd et al, 2003), and 'flavoured rope' devices for pigs are being sold commercially in Finland. However, the effects of these forms of enrichment on tail biting have not been investigated.…”

Alternative farrowing systems: design criteria for farrowing systems based on the biological needs of sows and piglets

“…In addition, provision of substrates has been shown to decrease anti-social behaviours, including belly nosing and aggressive interactions with pen mates (Beattie et al, 2000). Any form of enrichment should have properties that accommodate the motivated behaviours for the animals concerned ( Van de Weerd et al, 2003) which, in the case of piglets, include foraging and exploratory behaviours. Earth-like materials such as peat, mushroom compost (Beattie et al, 1998) and more complex materials such as branches have been shown to be preferred as enrichment substrates over straw (Table 2).…”

Behaviour of liquid-fed growing pigs provided with straw in various amounts and frequencies

“…In the current study, percentage of active time spent on straw-directed behaviour decreased from 33.8% to 26.2% from 40 to 80 kg LW. This could be due to several things, for example, it may have been due to a habituation to straw by the pigs, as van de Weerd et al (2003) already found pigs' habituation to enrichment materials happened within 5 days. However, the decrease in straw-directed behaviour could also more likely be related to the increased stocking density, as pigs may have had difficulties approaching the straw due to limited space.…”