The first 12 weeks of a pig’s life is a critical period of development, and what a pig experiences during this period of time will shape how an individual responds to subsequent life events, leading to consequences for the overall health and resilience of the pig, welfare and productivity. Evaluating the effect of management strategies early in life to impact the long-term welfare and resilience of the pig in fully slatted systems is the objective of Goal 1 of the NSERC industrial research chair program in swine welfare. This work is important to uncover ways to optimize welfare and performance in the fully-slatted system, and could contribute to supporting other industry goals such as reducing antibiotic use, to which the fundamental resilience of the pig is important for success.
As part of our study design, we will follow the pigs from birth to slaughter, giving them chewable enrichments, extra space, or neutral human contact either in the period between birth to four weeks, or four to twelve weeks, or both. Provided that a marked improvement on the stress resilience, performance, or welfare of the pig is seen, the treatments implemented in the study could potentially serve as functional modifications to swine housing in production settings.
Evaluating the impact of early life management of piglets on lifetime welfare and performance (full article)
