Effects Of Conditioning Reflex Training And Straw On The Welfare Level In Weaned Piglets

The date of piglets weaning is usually brought forward to 3 to 4 weeks in current large-scale farms in order to improve the economic benefits of raising pigs.However,the early weaned piglets could suffer from malignant stress,because of leaving sow early,turning up and groups mixing,and high density in breeding.At present,the method of dealing with stress in weaned piglets in China mainly relies on drugs for prevention and control,and there are few research reports to deal with the weaned piglet from the perspective of animal welfare.This thesis selected 62(5.01±0.85kg)of 21 dweaned piglets of Danish Landrace as the research object which were randomly divided into 2 groups: experimental group(taking the classical conditioning reflex training and the straw bedding)and the control group(normal breeding),there were 3 repetitions in each group which has 10 or 11 pigs.The experimental results showed that compared with the control group,the experimental group was 9% more playful and 13% exploratory behavior than control group,while lying behavior in the control group was 24 percent more than experiment group.There was no significant difference in the skin lesions after the transfer between experimental and control group.On the fourth day injury rate was generally declining.Comparing with control group,the average daily gain increased by 28.5% and feed intake increased by 18.5% in the experimental group,while F/G decreased by 11.5%.Measurments of saliva cortisol in the 2nd,5th and 9th days of the rotation group showed that the experimental group decreased by-5%,14%,and 32% respectively.The treatment increased the natural behavior of piglets,improved the production performance of piglets,and provided a new solution to alleviate the stress problem of weaned pigs.