Implementation of Straw Racks in Commercial Pig Housing—Impact on Straw Availability and Pig Behaviour

Torun Wallgren and Stefan Gunnarson
Additional contact information
Torun Wallgren: Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), P.O. Box 70568, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
Stefan Gunnarson: Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), P.O. Box 234, 532 23 Skara, Sweden

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: This study investigated if straw racks, which enable larger straw rations, induced a more straw-directed behaviour in pigs, as a mean to facilitate the provision of manipulable material and natural behaviour. It was conducted on a commercial farm (459 pigs, 42 pens, 30–120 kg) where half of the pens received 25 L of straw on the floor (CONTROL) and the other half of the pens received straw in a rack holding 44 L of straw (RACK). The pig behaviour in five randomly assigned pens per treatment were recorded for 24 h, during three periods of production. Pig activity levels, exploratory behaviour, pen utilization and available clean straw were scan sampled. During period 1, no pigs were observed interacting with the straw racks. During this period, CONTROL pigs conducted more straw-directed behaviour and less pen-directed behaviour compared to pigs in the pens with a rack during period 1. The lack of rack interactions may imply an underdeveloped spatial cognition in the pigs. Apart from period 1, there were no significant difference in behaviour between RACK and CONTROL pigs. The racks did not disturb the use of the pen. The absent treatment effect in periods 2 and 3 may reflect that there was a too small difference in straw ration between the treatments. In order to design and implement straw racks that promote straw interaction, future studies should focus on understanding pigs’ spatial cognition.

Keywords: finishing pigs; tail biting; swine; environmental enrichment; litter material (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: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/1/5/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/1/5/ (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:12:y:2021:i:1:p:5-:d:707670

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 ().