Music Recognition Ability Of Piglets And Effect Of Music Stimulation On Piglets

This paper aimed to study the behavioral,performance,and immune responses by piglets under four combination of two different music types(String instrumental music and Organ instrumental music)and two rhythm(slow pace and fast pace)to reveal whether the piglets had cognitive ability to identify music types and examined its effects on behavior,performance,and immunity of piglets.In experimental one,four kinds of different types(string and band)and rhythm(slow and fast)of music were provided to four groups of the piglets in order to test cognitive ability of the piglets Theresults showed that piglets were unable to identify the type of music by showing no preference to string and wind typed music,and there was no significant difference in the time spent under the two kinds of music environment(P>0.05).The piglets had a strong tendency to show their preference to music rhythm by favoring the fast pace rhythm compared to slow pace rhythm(P<0.01).The results also showed that the piglets in the different types of music had different preference to different music types as they preferred slow rhythm under the string music environment or preferred fast pace rhythm under the wind music environment(P<0.01).Therefore walking time in the fast rhythm under the wind music environment was significantly higher than other music groups(P<0.05).The interaction of music type and music rhythm had significant influence on the piglets total time spent in that music condition(P<0.01).There was no effect found on feeding behavior by the type of music(string and wind)(P>0.05).The piglets also showed more playing behavior with straw in the fast pace rhythm than the slow pace rhythm(P<0.05).The heart rate in the fast rhythm music was found to be significant higher than in slow rhythm(P<0.05),but there was no significant difference between the fast pace rhythm or the slow pace rhythm and controls(P>0.05).In experimental two,based on the experimental one's results,it was necessary to discover that whether piglets' preference would have positive effect on the piglet growth performance and welfare.The 144 eight piglets were used and divided into three groups(group A: slow pace string instrument music;group B: fast pace wind instrument music;group C: no music).Each group had 6 replicates,and each replicate had 8 piglets.The results showed that there was no significant difference in walking behavior between the two different music environments,the same as lying behavior In addition,exploring behavior,playing behavior and fighting behavior in the music treatments were higher than the control groups,but the difference did not reach significant difference(P>0.05).Moreover,in the different music environments,IL-4 and IL-10 had significant variation where IL-4 level in group A was significantly higher than that in the group B and C in the 28d(P<0.05),the IL-4 level in the group B showed decreasing trend with age progressed;the IL-10 level in the group A was significantly higher than that in the group A(P<0.05)in the 42 d,and also showed decreasing trend with the age.There was no significant difference production performance in the different music environment(P>0.05),and the feed conversion ratio in the group A showed decreasing trend in comparison to the group B and group C with the age progressed.It can be concluded that 1)the piglets did not show any preference to music type but did showed their preference to music rhythm,and short term stimulation of music had effective influence on piglets than the long term of music stimulation.2)slow pace music would elevate the performance of the piglets while the past rhythm would depress their performance;at early stage of music stimulation,fast pace rhythm would increase exploration and tail wagging of the piglets,this indicated more pleasure feeling by the piglets.3).Under music conditions,the piglets would walk more and rested less,this would be disadvantage to piglets growth performance.