The use of sloped walls in the dunging area of PigSAFE farrowing pens over summer to improve piglet survival

摘要

The PigSAFE (Piglet and Sow Alternative Farrowing Environment) loose farrowing pen has been developed in the United Kingdom. This system is designed to allow the sows to perform maternal behaviours such as isolation, nest building and bonding with piglets. The pen design incorporates a nest area with solid flooring, the provision of nesting material and sloped walls against which the sow can slide slowly to ground level for suckling (which lowers the chance of piglets being trapped and killed). A heated creep area is easily accessed by piglets from the nest, and a separate slatted dunging area is bounded by walls with barred panels to adjacent pens to discourage farrowing outside the nest and allow physical contact between sows. A feeding crate is included where the sow can be locked away to allow safe inspection or treatment of the piglets (Baxter et al., 2011). An Australian pen design includes a spray mister and cooling fan over the dunging area, which is activated during summer. There is anecdotal evidence that the sow will spend more time in the dunging area over summer, which may put piglets at risk as there are no protected zones within this area. The aim of this experiment was to compare piglet survival in the PigSAFE farrowing pen with and without a small sloped wall in the dunging area, with the hypothesis tested that less piglet deaths would occur in the dunging area compared to other areas of the pen in the treatments with a sloped wall in the dunging area.