Who Plays With Whom: Farrowing Environment Influences Isolation of Foster Piglets in Play

Jasmine M Clarkson,Emma M Baxter,Jessica E Martin

doi:10.3389/fanim.2021.724080

Abstract

Cross fostering piglets is a common management practise in the pig industry to manage large and heterogeneous litters, whereby piglets are moved from their biological litter to be reared by another sow. At present research has focused on immediate survival consequences and time of cross fostering, with little attention given to positive aspects of welfare such as social affiliations and the potential for positive interactions for these piglets such as play behaviour. The focus of our study was purely observational to record behaviour of piglets reared in either impoverished (farrowing crates) or enriched neonatal environments (PigSAFE pens) where fostering was practised as part of normal husbandry routines to promote piglet survival. We employed social network analysis to understand more about the behaviour of foster piglets in these environments and their acceptance into their new litter. In line with previous work, piglets exposed to enriched neonatal farrowing pens demonstrated more play behaviour than piglets reared in farrowing crates. We showed that pen piglets received and initiated more play invitations (higher degree centrality) than piglets in crates. We also found effects of cross fostering irrespective of neonatal environment. Non-foster piglets received and initiated more play behaviours (higher degree centrality) 2–3 weeks post-farrowing compared to piglets fostered into the litter and as such, fostered piglets remained isolated from play for the first few weeks of life. However, our data suggests this may be mitigated by neonatal environment; foster piglets reared in pens were better connected (betweenness centrality) within their foster litter than those fostered in crates. Our findings highlight the importance of the neonatal environment and its potential influence on the isolation of cross-fostered piglets and suggest that rearing in enriched neonatal environments may help mitigate against social isolation in early life of cross-fostered piglets, having obvious immediate, and long-term consequences for piglet welfare and behaviour. We also highlight the importance and application of methodologies such as social network analysis, for gaining more insight and understanding about the sociality of animal behaviour and its potential for measuring indicators of positive welfare, thus highlighting its application for veterinary science and animal behaviour and welfare research.

Highlights

A common management practise in the pig industry to help deal with large litter sizes and heterogeneous litters is to cross-foster, ideally shortly after birth
We found evidence supporting previous findings (De Jonge et al, 1996; Brown et al, 2015; Martin et al, 2015; Weller et al, 2019) that piglets exposed to enriched neonatal environments, such as PigSAFE Pens, demonstrate more active play behaviour, through more directed play invitations, than piglets born into standard farrowing crates with limited space and enrichment provision
When combined with the results assessing the number of play invitations, our findings suggest that foster piglets remain well connected within the network and are interacting with the majority of non-foster piglets when kept in enriched free-farrowing conditions such as Pens

Summary

Introduction

A common management practise in the pig industry to help deal with large litter sizes and heterogeneous litters is to cross-foster, ideally shortly after birth. Surplus piglets require different management interventions to promote survival including; split suckling, cross-fostering, the use of nurse sows systems and early weaning and split weaning (Baxter et al, 2013). All of these methods including the additional handling they may involve, have documented short- and long-term negative effects (Baxter et al, 2013)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion