welfare – Swine in Minnesota

How do pig veterinarians view technology-assisted data utilization for pig health and welfare management? A qualitative study in Spain, the Netherlands, and Ireland

This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.

Xiao Zhou, Beatriz Garcia-Morante, Alison Burrell, Carla Correia-Gomes, Lucía Dieste-Pérez, Karlijn Eenink, Joaquim Segalés, Marina Sibila, Michael Siegrist, Tijs Tobias, Carles Vilalta, and Angela Bearth examine swine veterinarians’ current technology practices and needs in this week’s Science Page.

Prop 12 compliance – A podcast episode on early field experience

Thank you for your interest in this archived blog post. The link below may not work anymore, but you can access older episodes of “At the Meeting” at the podcast’s website!

With several successful California Prop 12 certifications behind her, Dr. Cara Haden from Pipestone Veterinary Services has important insights about the compliance process. She shares with the At The Meeting team how important detailed documentation is to the Prop 12 certification process.

Summary: Implementation of piglet castration under inhalation anaesthesia on farrowing farms

This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.

Researchers at the Clinic for Swine at LMU Munich (Eva-Maria Winner, M. Beisl, S. Gumbert, H. Härtel, J. Kaiser, A. Wernecke, S. Senf, Y. Zablotski, M. Ritzmann, and S. Zöls) take a look at piglet castration under inhaled isoflurane.

History and best practices of captive bolt euthanasia for swine

This week, we are sharing a literature review based on a collaboration between Drs. John Deen and Perle Zhitnitskiy and the animal welfare team at the University of Wisconsin River Falls, led by Dr. Kurt Vogel. In this open-access publication from the Journal of Translational Animal Science, the authors review the history of captive bolt euthanasia, best practices and current challenges faced by the swine industry including the euthanasia of mature swine.

Impact of Enrichment on the Behavior of Sows Housed in Groups

Drs. Ventura and Zhitnitskiy, faculty members in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resources and the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota recently published a new article regarding the influence of point-source enrichment on the behavior of gestating sows housed in groups. The article is available in open-access on the Frontiers in Animal Science website.

Key Points

Most common observed behaviors were sows being inactive (73%), followed by sham-chewing (16%). Enrichment use made up only 1% of observations.
Number of observed interactions with enrichment decreased sharply on the second day.
Low-parity sows, moderately-lame sows, and sham-chewing sows interacted more with the enrichment.
No increase in adverse effects (agonistic behaviors, sham-chewing) was observed.