Evaluation of Behavioral Aspects after Intradermal and Intramuscular Vaccine Application in Suckling Piglets

Manuel Göller, Nicole Kemper and Michaela Fels
Additional contact information
Manuel Göller: Institute for Animal Hygiene, Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Behavior, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Bischofsholer Damm 15, D-30173 Hannover, Germany
Nicole Kemper: Institute for Animal Hygiene, Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Behavior, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Bischofsholer Damm 15, D-30173 Hannover, Germany
Michaela Fels: Institute for Animal Hygiene, Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Behavior, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Bischofsholer Damm 15, D-30173 Hannover, Germany

Agriculture, 2020, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-13

Abstract: The aim of this study was to analyse the behavioral aspects of suckling piglets after an intradermal vaccination method in comparison to an intramuscular vaccination applied on the seventh day of life. Possible effects on piglet welfare should be evaluated. Under field conditions, 135 suckling piglets from 12 litters were vaccinated against Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae —64 of those intradermally and 71 intramuscularly, from six litters each. For behavioral analyses, videos were recorded per pen, starting three days before the vaccination and ending three days after the vaccination. In the video analyses, the observation periods 6.00–10.00, 13.00–17.00, and 19.00–21.00 were analysed via scan sampling for the behaviors lying, standing, walking, suckling, and social contact. In the behavioral observations, in all piglets, the most frequent behavior was lying, followed by suckling at the sow’s teats. After vaccination, less lying behavior and more suckling behavior were assessed in intradermally vaccinated piglets compared to intramuscularly vaccinated piglets, which indicates that the piglets were not impaired by stress following vaccination. The results of this study showed that intradermal needle-free vaccination has clear advantages, as it caused fewer vaccination-associated behavior changes in suckling piglets than the intramuscular vaccination method with a needle.

Keywords: farrowing farms; health management; immune response; immunization; suckling piglets; behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/12/637/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/12/637/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:10:y:2020:i:12:p:637-:d:462274

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().