Effect of Artificial Piglet Suckling Sounds on Behavior and Performance of Piglets and Adrenal Responses of Sows.

Jaruwan Khonmee,Thanat Wathirunwong,Panuwat Yamsakul,Chaleamchat Somgird,Terdsak Yano,Janine L Brown

doi:10.1155/2018/2762153

Jaruwan Khonmee, Thanat Wathirunwong + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/2762153

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Abstract

Operation of the farrowing house is essential to the productivity of a swine farm, requiring not only good management but also knowledge of the behavior of sows and piglets. Stress can negatively affect production in farm animals and could be a factor in production indexes. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of artificial sucking sounds on the behavior of piglets and fecal glucocorticoid (FGM) concentrations of sows. A total of 30 sows were divided into two groups: a treatment group (15 sows) was exposed to artificial sucking sounds and a control group (15 sows) was not. Both groups received the same management; the two open-house system locations were separated by a distance of about 270 meters. The study had three key objectives: to compare farrowing indexes and to observe the sucking behavior of piglets using CCTV cameras. Fecal samples were collected daily for 21 days from the period after parturition to weaning to assess adrenal activity. The treatment group had a significantly higher average number of times piglets came to a sow's udder, and sows had a shorter onset time for the first piglet to come to the sow's udder than the control group (both P<0.05). The patterns and levels of FGM between the two groups were not different (both P<0.05), but the treatment group had better farrowing indexes than the control group (P>0.05), particularly for litter weight gain and percent preweaning mortality. In addition, the weaning to first service interval of the treatment group was shorter than the control group (P<0.05). This indicates that the artificial suckling sound probably has no adverse effect on adrenal responses of pig; however, it improves production indexes of postparturition sows.

Highlights

Good production indexes on a swine farm are dependent on good management in the farrowing house
Most production indexes did not differ significantly between treatment and control groups (P>0.05), with the exception of weaning to first service interval, which was shorter in the treatment compared to the control group (P=0.02) (Table 2)
The results indicate that the artificial suckling (AS) sounds stimulated the suckling behavior of piglets and resulted in improvement in some production indexes including litter weight gain, average pig weaning weight per sow, and percent preweaning mortality

Summary

Introduction

Good production indexes on a swine farm are dependent on good management in the farrowing house. One factor in that index is the quantity and quality of milk provided to piglets by nursing sows which affects the strength of the piglets and their potential as they mature. Related to that is the milk let-down reflex of sows which depends on many different hormones, especially prolactin and oxytocin [1,2,3]. Both of those hormones are stimulated by piglets massaging the udder [4]. Sounds made by the sow can induce the suckling behavior of piglets including massaging the sow’s udder; i.e., sound is important for stimulating suckling behavior of piglets. If piglets can receive sow’s milk in a higher level, they will be resulting in a better production performances e.g., increased

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