Swine

To Determine the Active and Inactive Hours for Sound Sows When Housed in Individual Pens

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Abstract

There are currently no analgesic drugs specifically approved for pain relief in livestock by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Therefore, the objective of this study was to (1) identify the active hours of sound sows and (2) use this information to watch these active hours of the same sows when lame and after pain mitigation treatments. To avoid confounding injury due to aggression, twelve, clinically normal, mixed-parity, crossbred sows were purchased from a commercial producer in Iowa and housed in individual pens at Iowa State University. One 12 v black and white CCTV camera was affixed above the pen. Video was captured onto a DVR at 10 frames per second in black and white mode. Scoring of video began at 0600 and ended at 1800 and two postures (active and inactive), out of pen or unknown were collected. All behavioral data were expressed as percentages and were subjected to a square root arcsine transformation process to normalize the distribution. Transformed data were analyzed using the PROC MIXED procedure in SAS®. A P value of P ≤ 0.05 was considered to be significant. No differences were observed for out of pen (P = 0.24) or unknown (P = 0.71) for the sows. There was a difference for the time spent active (P = 0.0003) versus inactive (P = 0.0052) over the 12-h for sows. Sows were most active at 0800 (59 %) and at 1600 (66 %) which corresponded to the feeding schedule. The least active hours were 0600, 0700, and 1700 h respectively. In conclusion the critical active hours for these sows were around feeding schedules. Therefore, it is beneficial to watch from 0800 to 1659 to capture when the sows are most active in their home pen environment.

Keywords: ASL R2550

How to Cite:

Meiszberg, A. M., Johnson, A. K., Stalder, K. J. & Karriker, L. A., (2010) “To Determine the Active and Inactive Hours for Sound Sows When Housed in Individual Pens”, Iowa State University Animal Industry Report 7(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ans_air-180814-75