Effect of Single Animal Feeding Stations and Group Size on Growing Performance of Group Housed Fattening Pigs

Andree,; Helga,; Huegle,; Thomas, Usha C.

doi:10.13031/2013.3534

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Systems are currently available to measure feed intake in association with feeding behavior for cattle (Basarab et al, 2003;Chapinal et al, 2007;Kelly et al, 2010), swine (Andree and Huegle, 2001;Chapinal et al, 2008;Hyun and Ellis, 2002;Nienaber et al, 1991), small livestock (Basarab et al, 2003;Gipson et al, 2006Gipson et al, , 2007Goetsch et al, 2010), and poultry (Puma et al, 2001). While some of these systems provide the user with feed intake data in addition to feeding behavior, they require feeders to be accessed by a single animal at a time and due to the cost only a limited number of feeding stations are placed in a pen.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of feeding behavior of group housed growing–finishing pigs

Brown–Brandl¹,

Rohrer²,

Eigenberg³

2013

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

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Feeding behavior and time spent eating contains valuable information that can be used for managing livestock, identifying sick animals, and determining genetic differences within a herd. Individual animal feeding behavior, in a commercial-sized pen, was recorded using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology and a series of multiplexers. Data were collected on 960 pigs (mixed barrows, 406 and gilts, 600) over 4 grow-out periods. The animals entered the facility at 24.6 ± 5.4 kg (mean ± standard deviation) at approximately 65 days of age and exited the facility at 101.4 ± 13.8 kg (between 116 and 133 days later). Time spent at the feeder was analyzed for the effects of days on feed, sex, weight gain, and health effects. The amount of time spent at the feeder averaged 68.8 min day À1 pig À1 over the grow-out period, and increased from the day the pigs enter the facility (24.0 ± 1.6 min day À1 pig À1 ; mean ± standard error) until plateauing at approximately 40 days later (76.7 ± 2.4 min day À1 pig À1 ; age $ 105 days). After the plateau, barrows spent 13.6 more minutes per day at the feeder than gilts. Pigs classified as 'high gaining' (79.2 ± 5.1 min day À1 pig À1) spent more time at the feeder than pigs classified as either 'normal' (72.6 ± 2.6 min day À1 pig À1) or 'low gaining' (67.6 ± 5.3 min day À1 pig À1). This initial manuscript demonstrates the potential of utilizing feeding behavior or time spent eating as a method of managing animals.

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