Survey Report on Nursery Pig Welfare Issues,Abnormal Behaviors,and Their Miti-gation in Intensive Pig Farms
This special survey investigated the current situation and improvement measures of nursery pig welfare in pig farms in China.The designed survey questionnaire was released on the QuestionStar platform,and the data of 151 pig farms with complete information and at least 50 nursery pigs were collected for statistical analysis.The results showed that:1)For nursery pigs of the investigated pig farms,the most frequent abnormal behavior and welfare problems were tail/ear biting and behavioral welfare problem,accounting for 41.1％and 31.8％respectively,the first welfare improvement or environmental enrichment measures were sufficient feed and water,and special toys,accounting for 66.9％and 29.8％respectively,showing greater improvement room for environmental enrichment;2)Com-pared with pig farms that did not value animal welfare,pig farms that valued animal welfare reduced environmental/health/behav-ioral/psychological welfare issues,and reduced tail/ear biting behavior,with changes of over 20％(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01);3)Compared to pig farms with a stock of≤3 000 nursery pigs,pig farms with a stock of＞3 000 nursery pigs had psychological welfare problems de-creased by 20.8％(P＜0.01),special toys and high-quality lighting to improve environment enrichment increased by 23.2％and 26.7％(P＜0.05)respectively,while bedding material decreased by 48.2％(P＜0.01),good health management and humane handling in-creased by 24.7％and 19.8％respectively(P＜0.01 or P＜0.05);4)Compared to pig farms with a labor quota of ≤ 800 nursery pigs,pig farms with a labor quota of＞800 nursery pigs had psychological welfare problem,destroying pens and bedding material decreased by 16.3％,14.7％and 44.2％(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01),but high-quality lighting increased by 37.8％(P＜0.01);5)Compared to the southern pig farms,the northern pig farms had behavioral welfare issues and tail/ear biting behavior decreased by 17.3％and 22.2％,respectively(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01).In summary,valuing animal welfare,providing special toys and other environmental enrichment measures,and strengthening refined health management may decrease behavioral and other welfare issues and have great potential to improve the welfare of nursery pigs,especially for pig farms with a stock of ≤ 3 000 nursery pigs.
万方数据
维普
