Review: Early life piglet experiences and impacts on immediate and longer-term adaptability

Lucas, Maurice E.; Hemsworth, Lauren M.; Hemsworth, P.H.

doi:10.1016/j.animal.2023.100889

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…This extra complexity can confound the effects of maternal contact on the development of stress resilience. Piglets born to sows in loose housing systems, with greater maternal contact have previously been found to display changes in behavioural and physiological responses to stressors consistent with decreased stress resilience compared to farrowing crates with less maternal contact (Lucas, 2022). These authors explain that the observed decrease in stress resilience might be caused by differences in environmental complexity, rather than with changes in maternal bond.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The HC+ piglets received daily positive human interactions from 2 d of age until weaning. The HC+ treatment involved an experimenter sitting in the creep area of the pen for five minutes and gently patting, stroking, or scratching piglets that approached the experimenter, similar to Lucas (2022). The same interactions were imposed on HC+ piglets if they were sucking at the udder or sleeping at the time of treatment imposition The positive human contact treatment was implemented, at a time between 0700-1400 h, by five female experimenters.…”

Section: Human Contact Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular Chidgey et al (2016) found that loose farrowing pens allows for more interactions between sows and their piglets compared to farrowing crates. In terms of stress resilience, piglets reared in farrowing crates compared to farrowing pens, had reduced escape behaviour during routine husbandry procedures early in life, reduced fear behaviour to human and novel stimuli pre-and postweaning, reduced injuries at two weeks of age and post-weaning and reduced cortisol concentrations post-weaning and post-isolation later in life (Hayes et al, 2021;Lucas, 2022). Reduced maternal contact through imposed gradual weaning reduced piglet stress at weaning as measured by reduced cortisol response (de Ruyter et al, 2017;Turpin et al, 2017;Escribano et al, 2019) and improved postweaning performance by increasing growth and feed intake in the week following weaning (Turpin et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Considering that in Australia, sows and their litters are commonly housed in farrowing crates for the duration of lactation, it is important to investigate the impact of maternal contact within a crate system. Research on the topic of farrowing housing has also been reported in a recent review (Lucas et al, 2023). While the methods of the previous research have implied that maternal contact is important for the development of stress resilience, directly determining if obstructing nose-to-nose contact between sows and piglets affects development of stress resilience is yet to be investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, there is evidence that positive human contact during early life is effective at improving stress resilience. Brief daily positive contact of piglets reduced escape behaviour during routine husbandry procedures, fear behaviour to human and novel stimuli pre-and post-weaning, injuries post-weaning and cortisol concentrations post-weaning (Hayes et al, 2021;Lucas, 2022). Muns et al (2015) also showed that positive human contact of piglets on the first day of life reduced escape behaviour during tail docking on the subsequent day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maternal contact and positive human interactions during lactation impacts piglet performance and behaviour during lactation

Tomas,

Savaglia,

Plush

et al. 2024

Front. Anim. Sci.

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IntroductionEarly life interactions with the sow or humans can have lifelong consequences on welfare and performance in pigs. It was hypothesised that piglets that received increased maternal contact and positive human contact would display improved responses to stressful events and improved performance.MethodsNinety-eight litters were allocated to a 2 x 2 factorial design for maternal contact (MC+)/restricted maternal contact (MC-); and positive human contact (HC+)/no additional human contact (HC-). Modified farrowing crates were used to restrict maternal contact (MC-) and litters in the HC+ treatment received five minutes of daily positive human interaction (stroking). Behavioural and physiological responses were assessed during processing at three days of age and during a behaviour test in which piglets were introduced to an empty arena, novel object, human hand and human standing in the arena at 18 days of age. Observations of behaviour in the home pen and growth and survival of piglets to weaning were also assessed.ResultsAt processing, MC- piglets had more squeals (P = 0.015), tended to have more grunts (P = 0.063) and struggle attempts (P = 0.079), and had increased plasma cortisol concentrations (P = 0.009) after processing than MC+ piglets. During the behaviour test, HC+ piglets were more active (P = 0.014) and had more vocalisations (P < 0.05) in the empty arena than HC piglets. Furthermore, HC+ piglets were more likely to approach a human standing in the arena (P = 0.006) than HC- piglets. MC- piglets were less active (P = 0.008) and were less likely to approach the novel object (P = 0.049) than MC+ piglets. MC+ piglets tended to have higher weaning weights (P = 0.055) and more MC+ piglets were successfully weaned (P = 0.022) than MC- piglets. There was no significant effect of HC on piglet performance.DiscussionWhile positive handling did not affect behavioural and physiological stress response to processing, HC+ reduced fear of novelty and humans. These findings highlight the importance of early life experiences has on stress resilience early in life.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Human Contact Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%