The availability of alternatives to specific rewarding behaviours is a promising idea to help a greater high quality of life for intensively farmed pigs. Play behaviour has been related to pleasure and enjoyable, suggesting that taking part in animals expertise pleasurable states. Pigs play intensively between 2 and 6 weeks of age and this decreases with age thereafter.
Goal: To find out if the availability of play alternatives might improve the standard of lifetime of pigs, this research investigated if play might be promoted and sustained in pigs past the pure interval of expression in a business setting. Whether or not play is optimistic for pigs and the impact of play on common every day achieve and stress physiology was additionally explored.
Strategies: Rising pigs (n = 288, 10 weeks of age), housed in normal partly-slatted pens, have been assigned to both a Management therapy with no play interventions (CON, 1 m2/pig); or to a Novelty (NOV) or Play pen (PLP) remedies, with play promotion between 10 and 21 weeks delivered via play periods 3x/week. Play remedies acquired the intermittent provision of destructible novel objects supplied both within the house pen (NOV, 1 m2/pig), or in an enclosed ‘play pen’ space offering additional area (PLP, 2.9 m2/pig). To know if play is optimistic, the frequency and period of anticipatory behaviour have been recorded earlier than play periods, while play behaviour, together with indicators of emotional valence akin to vocalization, tail, and ear postures, have been recorded throughout play periods on focal pigs (n = 144) at 11, 16 and 21 weeks. To discover the physiological response to play, saliva was collected pre and publish play, and analysed for cortisol and alpha-amylase, and development price was calculated from trial entry and exit weights.
Outcomes: Pigs in PLP and NOV performed extra regularly and for an extended period of time throughout weeks in comparison with CON. NOV and PLP didn’t differ in play frequency and period, apart from week 21 when PLP performed extra regularly. Play remedies expressed extra anticipatory behaviour and behavioural indicators related to a optimistic expertise (ears relaxed and ahead, tail wagging, barks) in comparison with CON. Cortisol was elevated solely in NOV in comparison with CON after the play session, however alpha-amylase and development price didn’t differ.
Conclusion: Play was efficiently promoted and sustained till the ending interval and equally expressed no matter additional area. Pigs with play alternatives expressed indicators that play is a rewarding and motivating behaviour and will improve the standard of lifetime of farmed pigs when supported.
KarolÃna Steinerová, Sarah E. Parker, Jennifer A. Brown, Yolande M. Seddon,
The promotion of play behaviour in grow-finish pigs: the connection between behaviours indicating optimistic expertise and physiological measures,
Utilized Animal Behaviour Science,
2024,
106263,
ISSN 0168-1591,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106263.
