On-Farm Welfare Assessment Protocol for Suckling Piglets: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Piglets experience welfare issues during the nursery phase. This pilot study aimed to test a protocol for identifying the main welfare issues in suckling piglets and to investigate relationships among animal-based indicators and management conditions. Litters (n = 134), composed of undocked and tail-docked piglets, were assessed at two farms. After birth, observations were made at the age of 7 days and 20 days. At each observation, housing conditions (HCs) were measured, and 13 animal-based indicators, modified from Welfare Quality, Classyfarm, Assurewel and others introduced ex novo, were recorded. A generalized linear mixed model was used, considering animal-based indicators as dependent variables and farm, piglets’ age, tail docking and HCs as independent variables. The main welfare issues were lesions of the limb (32.6%) and the front area of the body (22.8%), a poor body condition score (BCS) (16.1%), ear lesions (15.5%), and tail lesions (9.7%). Negative social behaviour (e.g., fighting and biting) represented 7.0% of the active behaviour, with tail biting observed in 8.7% of the piglets. While lesions on the front areas of the body were mostly associated with the farm, tail lesions, low BCS, tear staining, and diarrhoea were associated with light and nest temperature (p < 0.05). In particular, tail biting increased with scarce light (p = 0.007). Tail docking did not influence any animal-based indicator except for tear staining which was higher in the tail-docked as compared to the undocked piglets (p = 0.05), increasing awareness on this practice as a source of negative emotion in piglets. The protocol tested may be a promising tool for assessing on-farm piglets’ welfare.

The multivariate approach identifies relationships between pre-slaughter factors, body lesions, ham defects and carcass traits in pigs

“…Values of prevalence above 10% were considered as indicators of welfare issues. Lastly, the lesion score index (LSI), which considered both the frequency and the severity of the lesions, was then calculated in each area as follows (range 0 to 200, where 0 is absence and 200 is all animals with severe lesions [ 23 , 24 ]: …”

Behavior and Welfare of Undocked Heavy Pigs Raised in Buildings with Different Ventilation Systems

“…Despite that, lesion outcomes were not significantly different between the two animal groups in the different buildings. A discrepancy between these two indicators (behavior and lesion) was previously observed in other studies [ 24 ]. A possible explanation is that the lesions are the consequence of negative social behavior that occurred in a range of time (days or weeks), while the behavioral analysis in this study was a picture of the exact moment of the assessment since they were recorded by direct observation.…”

“…The frequency of “inactive behavior” was calculated as a function of the total behavior observed, as explained in the Welfare Quality protocol for pigs [ 23 ]. Observed stereotypies and abnormal behaviors were recorded (i.e., tail biting, ear biting, dog sitting, bar biting), and they were calculated as the percentage of the mean of animals exhibiting the behavior (A b ) over the total number of animals (A tot ) in the pen [ 24 ]. A b /A tot × 100 (%).…”

“…Skin lesions were scored in each pig using a score [ 23 ] ranging from 0 to 2 (i.e., 0: up to 4 lesions, 1: from 5 to 10 lesions; 2: more than 11 lesions); then, the most frequent (i.e., prevalence) score was calculated and considered for each pen. The lesion score, ranging from 0 to 200 [ 24 ], was calculated for each monitored area as follows: prevalence of lesion with a score of 1 + (2 × prevalence of lesion with score of 2). …”

“…Other LHMs were recorded using a Y/N score (where Y denotes presence, and N denotes absence), and the prevalence of pigs having a Y score was calculated in each pen [ 24 ].…”