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Swine kept in stalls will exhibit the ingestive behavior of rooting around. They try and get the feed down out of the feed box by sticking there nose nose under the lip and move it back and forth to make feed come down. In the picture below we see sows eating in pen gestation. Sows after designating pecking order will have a feeding order and stalls that they prefer to eat at. Sows on full feed take turns eating after one another and avoid their dominant pen mates.

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Neonatal Behaviors Following Birth (Young)

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Neonatal Behaviors Following Birth (Young)

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Three behaviors piglets express after being born:
1.) Piglets will seek the underline of the sow for Milk.
2.) They will sample different teats and attach to one they like.
3.) They will then defend that teat they have latched on to and then perform "maintenance" to their desired location on the underline during lactation.

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Maternal Behaviors Following Birth (Mother)

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Maternal Behaviors Following Birth (Mother)

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Three maternal behaviors following sows giving birth:
1.) Before sows give birth their underline will fill with milk showing signs of birthing soon. After she gives birth, her milk will be continuously available to her piglets. After that, her milk be let down in intervals.
2.) She will make low vocalizations signaling her piglets to come near to get ready to nurse.
3.) Even in crates sows and gilts will become defensive over their young and be cautious of handlers handling them.

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In the video we have a guy heat checking. The gilt he is checking is close to her standing heat. I would say by the end of the video, she becomes more receptive. He is pressing on her back like a boar would to see if she will stand to be bred
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1sGf9DtvJ8#action=share

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Male Pigs will grunt and brush up against females to see if they will be receptive in natural breeding settings. If they are receptive, boars will mount and breed the females. Females are attracted to the boars smell. Boars will also froth at the mouth in breeding settings.

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Natural Mating - The Boar Achieves Successful Mounting

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A common dominance hierarchy found in pigs is a simple linear dominance hierarchy. The establishment of the pecking order occurs within 24 hours of mixing with different levels of aggression. This dominance hierarchy determines who gets to eat first, sleep where ever they want, and can be managed by removing feeble or boss hogs.

Animal Behavior: Pigs. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2019, from http://www.animalbehaviour.net/pigs/

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Sensory Modalities

Visual

·       Visual signals in pigs are not well developed or researched. However, like many livestock species their tail plays a roll. For example, a tightly curled tail is an indication of a healthy, “happy” pig.

Auditory

·       There are 20 different sounds that pigs can make. The most common, the grunt, can be a social interaction between animals or looking for food.

Tactile

·       When a new pig is introduced, members of the group investigate it by nosing it. Usually this leads to power struggles and they fight for position in the herd.

Chemical/Smell

·       Pheromones from a sow or gilt are a good example of chemical signals. This will let boars know if a female will be receptive or not.

Landsberg, G. M. (n.d.). Social Behavior of Swine - Behavior. Retrieved February 14, 2019, from https://www.merckvetmanual.com/behavior/normal-social-behavior-and-behavioral-problems-of-domestic-animals/social-behavior-of-swine

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It is no secret that I maybe a bit obsessed with pigs. I chose swine because I grew up raising pigs on a small family farm and one day want to have a career in the swine industry. At a young age, I joined organizations like 4-H and FFA where I was able to show livestock. Pigs quickly became my favorite and I started raising show pigs. After my junior college, I decided to pursue a degree in Animal Science and focus on nutrition for pigs. I have sense then held an internship working at a 1600 head farrowing facility in Iowa for the summer and became a member of the Student Social Forces Team for #RealPigFarming. I am also going to graduate school for swine nutrition in the summer. I chose pigs because of an early interest and hunger to learn more about my favorite species.

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PIC Genetic's Gilt

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Research Study Linking Behavior to Genetics

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Research Study Linking Behavior to Genetics

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I would like to start out by saying I could not get the article to link because of its protection from Iowa State. Please follow the link at the bottom of the page to see the article. This research study look at alter feeding behavior and how they selected for those traits. They wanted to address how improving feed efficiency effected welfare of the pig. They were able to identify a interaction between the feeding behavior of the pig and lean tissue gain without effecting the pigs welfare.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=5754&context=etd

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This is an ideal load-out ramp and one that you may see in many hog facilities today. A positive punishment for the hogs not moving would be applying the use of a prod (use should be limited) and after its use they will begin to move. Another punishment would be pressure, pressure put on the animal to move up the ramp will make them want to flee their handler. A reinforcement would be their reward in the trailer, freedom from handler.

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Pigs are probably red-green color blind and cannot make out very small symbols. Too little is known about their visual capabilities to use it in a study. However, their sense of smell works great when conducting studies due to their heighten sense of smell.

Gieling, E. T., Nordquist, R. E., & van der Staay, F. J. (2011). Assessing learning and memory in pigs. Animal cognition, 14(2), 151-73.

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Show Pig

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In this study, pigs were trained to find food by pressing their noses on panels to find food. Lots of groups with different variables were tested like dominant pigs, pigs that had been fed, uneducated pigs, and the number was changed to observe the behavior and learning capacity of pigs looking for food.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003347279900332

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Littermate interaction can be categorized as a sensitive period in pigs because this is where young pigs learn to interact with other members of their species and learn how to play, fight, and in general survive in pig hierarchy.

Park, S. Y. (n.d.). Social Behavior   in Pigs. Retrieved February 7, 2019, from https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/204302/SYPark_pig_socia_ behavior_research_report.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

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Boar courting gilt

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Boar pigs when in the presence of sows/gilts in heat will froth at the mouth, chomp their mouth, and make low grunts to see if the sows will be receptive. Also, boars will froth at the mouth and chomp to show other boars they mean business and this usually leads to a fight for resources or space. In the one picture you have wild boars who have escalated to a fight, but you can see their teeth are shown and they are foaming at the mouth. In the other picture you see a boar pig frothing and courting a gilt.

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In today's industry with tight margins it is important to take advantage of whatever you can to make money. By being aware of your herds genetics, over time you can increase your profitability by selecting for traits that best suit your need. If you have a low number born alive then you need to select for that trait to be passed down in your replacement gilts. For a sow farm, piglets "out the door" is your source of income and can make a great difference in the economic value of your overall herd.