Evaluating the impact of early life management of piglets on lifetime welfare and performance
The early life experience of piglets before and around weaning can influence their behavioural adaptation and the development of positive or negative behavioural characteristics that have significant, and likely lasting, implications for welfare, stress resilience and production performance. This research will determine whether providing targeted adjustments to management at specific sensitive periods in the piglets’ development, could offer a simple and effective method of benefitting the welfare, health and productivity of pigs. Working within the context of the pig’s development and physiology could potentially provide an avenue for optimizing cost effectiveness and benefits of enrichments and can identify management strategies to help optimize welfare within modern fully-slatted systems of production. Supporting the overall resilience of the pig will simultaneously help to support goals to help reduce antibiotic use and support production in the face of common stressors experienced in the production system.
