Some further observations upon pigs reared in cold pens

Abstract

The experiment reported here involved thirty-two pigs from birth to bacon weight. During the 9 weeks before weaning sixteen pigs were reared on damp cold floors in a cold building and sixteen were reared on dry cold floors in the same building. After weaning all the floors were kept dry.Before weaning four out of the sixteen pigs in each treatment died, but only one, which was in the wet cold floor group, was suspected of having a liver disease which has been described by Naftalin & Howie (1949). A greater incidence of this disease was expected to occur under the cold environmental conditions of the experiment.After weaning one deformed pig was killed and three other pigs were killed at 40 weeks old. The latter three all had the liver disease. There was evidence that the disease had developed after the pigs were weaned and this indicated that it cannot necessarily be prevented by the provision of dry conditions in a cold house. The growth curves of two of the three pigs fitted the hypothesis that the disease is associated with cold environmental conditions, but the growth curve of the third suggested that it might have contracted the disease during the summer when the minimum air temperature was 54° F.The possibility was discussed that the liver disease is caused by a virus or low nutritional status interacting with the effects of cold environmental conditions.The two pre-weaning treatments had no dissimilar effects upon the piglets' weaning weights, blood haemoglobin levels and appetites for solid food, nor did they have any differential effect upon the growth rates and efficiencies of conversion of food to flesh of the pigs which survived to bacon weight. The bacon carcasses from the pigs born and reared to weaning on wet cold floors were shorter and fatter than those from pigs born and reared on dry cold floors. No explanation could be offered for this difference in carcass conformation.The rates of heat loss from a constant temperature water-bath to an uninsulated concrete floor upon which pigs had not lain were halved by the provision of ½ in. depth of chopped straw bedding. They were also halved if the measurements were taken after pigs had recently been lying on the bare floor, and under these circumstances the provision of ½ in. depth of chopped straw bedding cut the heat losses even further.