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This is an example of a floor and walk way audit checklist for swine. There are several guidelines that must be followed to pass a swine operation for a welfare audit.

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Whenever a person or some other animal enters into the flight zone, the animal moves away to maintain the distance. Moving slowly towards an animal results in a gradual withdraw. A rapid approach provokes a sudden retreat. Competent animal handlers take advantage of this instinctive reflects to move animals in a controlled manner. The point of balance on swine is their shoulder, so producers will use this to aid in the movement of these livestock.

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Pigs are diurnal, meaning they eat mostly during the day. In commercial settings, producers feed their pigs 8-12 meals per day but this number changes as they go through the different feeding phases. In large group-pen settings it may be more difficult for some pigs to eat because of the social hierarchy that exists. Which is why it is so important to make sure all the pigs are relatively the same size so nobody can fight over food. There are also hormonal effects, females is estrus have a depressed feed intake, and usually sows go off feed the day of parturition.

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Post #15 - piglet behavior post farrowing 

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Post #15 - piglet behavior post farrowing 

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1. Teat Seeking -- piglets search for teats using their snouts
2. Teat sampling -- piglets move from teat to teat
3. Teat Defense -- confine actives to a specific area of the udder
4. Teat maintenance -- following successful defense of a given teat, piglets go into the fourth phase of sucking and sleeping

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Post #14 - Maternal Behavior from a mothers perspective 

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Post #14 - Maternal Behavior from a mothers perspective 

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1. Nest building - sows like to create nests for their piglets to ensure safety for her babies. They gather straw and paw at the ground when they are about to farrow.
2. Let-down Phase - sows like to make a grunting noise when she is about to let down milk for her piglets, usually communicating that she is about to feed them. The sow lies on her side so her teats are reachable.
3. I noticed some experiencef sows back all the way up in their crate and slowly lay down making sure no piglets are underneath her. Some sows or gilts do not do this and just lay down, but I have noticed some experienced mothers take caution before lying down.

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The most frequent determinant of dominance in adult swine is what sex they are. Males tend to be more dominant in the hierarchy of swine, the next determent is the weight. Usually the most dominant pig will be the male and bigger than the rest.

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Vision and other special senses

Pigs have colour vision and a panoramic range of about 310°, and binocular vision of 35-50°. It is thought they have no accommodation (i.e., they cannot focus). Pigs are inquisitive and this must be remembered when moving them. If they are not hurried and can explore as they go along, they can be driven without effort. The extent to which pigs have colour vision is still a source of some debate. However, the presence of rods and cones with two distinct wavelength sensitivities in the blue andgreen frequencies (Lomas et al., 1998) suggests that at least some colour vision is present.

Pigs have a well-developed sense of smell and use is made of this in Europe where they locate underground truffles. Hearing is also well developed and localisation of sounds is made by moving the head. Olfactory rather than visual stimuli are used in the identification of conspecifics (Houpt, 1998).

Pigs learn quickly to manipulate food and water devices, to turn fans on and off (Ingram and Legge,1970) and to turn on a source of radiant heat (Ingram et al., 1975).

Auditory stimuli are used extensively by pigs as a means of communication in all social activities (Gonyou, 2001). Alarm or aversive stimuli are transmitted to conspecifics not only by auditory cues but also via pheromones (Vieuille-Thomas and Signoret, 1992).

Social organisation, dominance hierarchies and leadership

The basis of the social structure in feral pigs is the matriarchal herd of several females and their offspring (Kurz and Marchington, 1972). Males are not permanently associated with such herds, and are often solitary or in bachelor groups.

In the domestic situation pigs may be kept together with littermates throughout their lives or be grouped with strange pigs of similar age and size. There are two types of social organisation in the domestic pig (Signoret et al.,1975):

a. Teat order;

b. Dominance hierarchy.

Teat order. Within the first few hours to two weeks after farrowing, the piglets become capable of recognising their positions on the udder and preferentially attach themselves to anterior rather than posterior teats. This was shown in the early work of Donald (1973a, 1973b) and confirmed by many later workers (Hemsworth et al.,1976). It has been shown that stimulation of the anterior teats appeared to be important in causing milk letdown (Fraser, 1973) so it might be to the advantage of the entire litter to have these teats occupied by healthy piglets. The teat order may function as a type ofterritorial spacing system which, in turn, means a stable family life with minimum competition.

Most fights that occur in young piglets are around the udder (Hartstock and Graves, 1976) and more fights were won at the permanent nursing site than away from it. They called this the 'home-court advantage' and found that fighting declined as the nursing order was established.

Using an artificial sow to rear groups of piglets, Jeppesen (1982) suggested that recognition of a teat in a particular area of the udder depended on visual orientation by means of reference points on the udder to find the area, and then the olfactory sense is used for the search within that area.

Dominance hierarchy. This is the social organisation established in groups of weaned pigs. When a number of unacquainted pigs are mixed together for the first time, they fight to establish a dominance hierarchy, usually of a simple linear type. The fighting behaviour is generally mouth-to-neck attacks with strong thrusts sideways and upwards (McBride et al.,1964).

The establishment of the hierarchy occurs within 24 hours of mixing but the level of aggression drops dramatically after about one hour (Symoens and Van Den Brande, 1969). The dominance hierarchy is important as the social rank appears to influence productivity. It has been shown by some workers (Bielharz and Cox, 1967; McBride et al.,1964) that social rank influences growth, while others (Meese and Ewbank, 1973a) found that weight was not correlated with dominance or sex. The dominance hierarchy is important as a group stabiliser, but under adverse, intensive conditions, animals low on the hierarchy may be disadvantaged by lack of food and water.

The top-ranking pig can be removed from the group for up to 25 days and on return will still retain its position, but only if the social group it left was stable (Otten et al., 1997). A pig at the bottom of the hierarchy is treated as a stranger and attacked when returned after three days (Ewbank and Meese, 1971). Pigs probably recognise each other by sight and smell.

It is an advantage in a husbandry system to have a stable social organisation so that the pigs can settle down and grow and it may be that a system of 'birth-to-slaughter-weight-in-one-pen', in which pigs remain members of the same unchanged social group from birth to slaughter, is a way to reduce disturbances (Ewbank, 1978; Sainsbury D. and Sainsbury, P., 1979).

Huddling behaviour. Pigs are very susceptible to hot conditions and the rate of sweating is very low, so there is inadequate thermoregulatory compensation by respiratory evaporative loss. In the feral state, pigs seek shade and wallow in mud or water and become more active at night (Mount, 1979). Young pigs are sensitive to cold and a behavioural feature retained through a pig's life is the stimulus to huddle with littermates (Mount, 1979). Nest-building activity in the natural state provides shelter from environmental extremes.

Leadership. The work of Meese and Ewbank (1973b) showed no clear relationship between leadership, exploratory behaviour or social rank in groups of pigs in an outdoor area.

Dominant pre-weaned piglets have higher growth rates than subordinates due to suckling the more anterior teats (which secrete the most milk and have the lowest incidence of mastitis), allowing their dominance to be maintained through to post-weaning (Dyck et al., 1987).

Agonistic behaviour among piglets will decrease if they are regrouped during lactation rather than postweaning (Olsson and Samuelsson, 1993).

Instability of the dominance hierarchy increases with stocking density, thus increasing stress andaggression. This appears to depress the immune system and thus heighten the herd's susceptibility to disease (Turner et al., 2000).

Grouping pigs by weight heterogeneously rather than homogeneously, as is the current practice, mayincrease growth rate and reduce hierarchical conflict by allowing clear weight differentiation among littermates (Francis et al., 1996).

Odour masking, by methods such as creating a familiar odour on all pigs, masking the odour of unfamiliar pigs, and the use of pheromones and/or artificial compounds, has had little, if any, effect in limiting aggression and increasing hierarchical stability (Gonyou, 1997).

Isolation from a social group is very stressful for pigs and may result in stereotypies or attempts to escape (Gonyou, 2001).

Sexual behaviour

Courtship behaviour lasts only a short time when a boar is placed in a small pen with an oestrous female. The sow plays the critical role of meeting sexual partners as boars show equal choice between an oestrous and an anoestrous sow. The male sniffs the female, noses sides, flanks and vulva, and emits a 'mating song' of soft guttural grunts (6-8 seconds). He foams at the mouth and moves his jaw from side to side as the female poses and bites the male's ears gently. When the sowbecomes stationary the boar mounts. Androstenone within boar saliva aids in eliciting the standing response in the sow (Gonyou, 2001). Some sows are more attractive to boars than others and occasionally a sow may avoid and refuse to stand for a specific boar. Rearing females in isolation from males delays the standing response of the females once they are introduced to boars (Soede and Schouten, 1991).

Pheromones in boar saliva and preputial secretions induce oestrus in gilts and sows (this is known as the boar effect) (Pearce et al., 1988).

The presence of stimuli from boars (namely odour) will induce earlier puberty in gilts than if no other stimuli were present (Hemsworth et al., 1988).

Because an oestrous sow will stand near the boar (Bressers et al., 1991), penning breeding females adjacent to a boar makes identification of oestrous sows easy.

The social environment that boars have been raised in influences their levels of sexual activity (Hemsworth et al.,1977). Boars that are raised individually with no visual contact with immature females, but who can hear and smell the females, have reduced copulation frequency and shorter average duration of ejaculation compared to those raised in all-male or male-female groups. Boars that engage in more courting activity, especially nosing of the sow's flanks before mating, have higher conception rates (Hemsworth et al.,1978). This study suggested that extra flank-nosing might stimulate oxytocin release from the sow's pituitary gland and this could increase sperm transport and the number of sperm in the oviduct and so increase the chances of fertilisation.

Dominant boars cover the markings of subordinate animals with urine that is often contaminated withpreputial secretions (Mayer and Brisbin, 1986).

Maternal-offspring behaviour

In a paddock the sow will nest-build for up to six hours before parturition. She hollows out a depression and lines it with straw, grass, sticks, or other available material. While farrowing crates in intensive piggeries prevent much of this nest-building behaviour, many elements are still present and the sow will often perform similar activities to those of pigs provided with nesting material (Blackshaw J. and Blackshaw, A.,1982).

Pigs of lower social status tend to produce litters with piglets that are lighter in weight (Mendl et al.,1992).

Dominant sows give birth to more male piglets than do subordinate ones (Mendl et al., 1995).

Compared to other mammals, pigs display complex nursing and suckling behaviour (Fraser, 1980; Signoret et al.,1975). Nursing is frequent, every 50-60 minutes, and the sow requires stimulation from piglets before milk let-down. Sensory inputs (vocalisation, odours from mammary and birth fluids and hair patterns of the sow) are particularly important immediately post-birth to facilitate teat location by the piglets (Rohde Parfet andGonyou, 1991).

Initially, the piglets jostle for position at the udder, then each piglet massages around its respective teat with its snout, during which time the sow grunts at slow, regular intervals. Each series of grunts varies in frequency, tone and magnitude, indicating the stages of nursing to the piglets (Algers, 1993). The phase of competition for teats and of nosing the udder, lasts for about one minute, and ends when milk flow begins. In the third phase, the piglets hold the teats in their mouths and suck with slow mouth movements (one per second), and the rate of the sow's grunting increases and lasts about 20 seconds. The grunt peak in the third phase of suckling does not coincide with milk ejection but ratherthe release of oxytocin from the pituitary into the bloodstream (Castren et al., 1989). Phase four coincides with the period of main milk flow (10-20 seconds' duration) when the piglets suddenly draw back slightly from the udder and start sucking with rapid mouth movements of about three per second. The sow grunts rapidly, lower in tone and often in quick runs of three or four, during this phase. Finally, the flow stops and so does the grunting of the sow and the piglets may dart from teat to teat andrecommence suckling with slow movements, or nosing the udder.

Piglets massage and suckle the sow's teats after milk flow ceases as a way of letting the sow know their nutritional status. This helps her to regulate the amount of milk released from that teat in future sucklings. The more intense the post-feed massaging of a teat, the greater the future milk release from that teat will be (Jensen, Gustafsson and Augustsson, 1998).

It is often hard to tell if the nursing episode is initiated by the sow or the piglets and almost any disturbance causes the piglets to rise, squeal and then nurse. The sound of one litter nursing may initiate nursing among other litters. Fostering piglets from one litter to another is often carried out in the pig industry and it is recognised that sows may react aggressively to foster piglets and that suckling periods are disrupted. Horrell and Bennett (1981) exchanged three piglets between five pairs of littersat seven days of age after the teat order had been established. Compared with control litters, crossfostering disrupted the teat order relationships of the whole litter. Weight gain of fostered piglets during the second week was reduced to 79% of that in their nonfostered littermates. If fostering has to be done, it has more chance of success if the piglets are only one to three or four days old. Cross-fostering of piglets should be undertaken before teat order is established and involve movement of larger piglets rather than small ones to minimise teat order disruption and associated mortality and production losses (Gonyou, 2001).

In the natural environment, farrowing nests are built at least 100 m from the communal nest to improve piglet survival (Jensen, 1989).

PGF2a appears to be the hormonal regulator of nestbuilding behaviours such as nosing, rooting and pawing to create a depression, as well as the gathering of straw to line the nest (Burne, Murfitt and Johnston, 2001).

By the time piglets are 6 days old, they have begun to follow their mother (Stangel and Jensen, 1991).

Recognition between the sow and her piglets is by olfactory and vocal cues (Jensen and Redbo, 1987).

Without human interference, weaning is finished by the time the piglets are about 17 weeks old, but it may begin as early as 4 weeks of age when the mother begins to reduce her nursing efforts (Jensen and Recen, 1989).

Abnormal behaviour

Abnormal behaviours often found in pig units include:

1. Tail and ear biting (Blackshaw, 1981);

2. Cannibalism;

3. Reproductive behaviour problems such as abnormal mating behaviour and abnormal maternal behaviour;

4. Eating too much or too little; dominance relationships that prevent some animals from having access to food and water;

5. Abnormal dunging habits;

6. Persistent inguinal nose thrusting (PINT) (Blackshaw, 1981). PINT is defined as occurring when a pig repeatedly thrusts its nose into the inguinal area of a resting pig with the top of its snout, until the recipient pig moves. It is a behaviour pattern of high-ranking pigs, although other pigs do it;

7. Various stereotypies, which are repeated actions with no goal direction, have been described (Fraser, 1975) in tethered sows when not provided with straw;

8. Snout rubbing, when pigs rub their snouts on the flanks of other pigs causing necrosed areas (Allison, 1976).

These behavioural problems are easy to see and tell us something about the mental well-being of the animals. However, we do not know if animals experience emotional feelings in the same way as humans. Perhaps, the important thing to recognise is that these abnormal behaviours tell us that all is not well in the husbandry system.

A deficiency in iron may contribute to the incidence of tail biting (Fraser, 1987), but other factors have since been ranked as being of greater importance.

The incidence of cannibalism such as tail and ear biting has exceeded 10% of pigs in some studies (Arey, 1991).

Stereotypies may increase in prevalence through a piggery via social facilitation (Appleby, Lawrence and Illius, 1989).

Some stereotypies, such as ear sucking and biting, may be associated with low levels of fibre in the diet (Meunier-Salaün, Edwards and Robert, 2001).

Belly nosing/snout rubbing by piglets does not appear to be related to stress, diet quality or the presence of milk in the diet but is somehow related to the age at weaning (Gardner, Duncan and Widowski, 2001).

Abnormal behaviours, such as tail and ear biting, stereotypies and belly nosing, may be redirected rooting or nosing behaviour caused by barren commercial environments (Beattie, Walker and Sneddon, 1996).

References

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Allison C.J. 1976. Snout-rubbing as a vice in weaned pigs. Vet. Rec. 98:254-255.

Appleby, M.C., Lawrence, A.B. and Illius, A.W. (1989) Influence of neighbours on stereotypic behaviour of tethered sows. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 24, 137-146.

Arey, D.S. (1991) Tail biting in pigs. Farm building progress 105, 20-23.

Beattie, V.E., Walker, N. and Sneddon, I.A. (1996) An investigation of environmental enrichment and space allowance on the behaviour and production of growing pigs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 48, 151-158.

Beilharz , R.G. and Cox, D.F. 1967. Social dominance in swine. Anim. Behav. 15:117-122.

Blackshaw, J.K. 1981. Some behavioural deviations in weaned domestic pigs: Persistent inguinal nose thrusting, and tail and ear biting. Anim. Prod. 33:315-332.

Blackshaw , J.K. and Blackshaw, A.W. 1982. The effects of prostaglandin (PGF 2a) on the behaviour of the domestic non-pregnant sow and boar. Proc. Aust. Soc. Anim. Prod. 14:550-552.

Bressers, J.P.M., Te Brake, J.H.A. and Noordhuizen, J.P.T.M. (1991) Oestrus detection in group housed sows by analysis of data on visits to the boar. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 31, 183-193.

Burne, T.H.J., Murfitt, P.J.E., and Johnston, A.N.B. (2001) PGF2&#945; induced nest building and choice behaviour in female domestic pigs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 73 (4), 267-269.

Castren, H., Algers, B., Jensen, P. and Saloniemi, H. (1989) Suckling behaviour and milk consumption in newborn piglets as a response to sow grunting. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 24, 227-238.

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Francis, D.A., Christison, G.I. and Cymbaluk, N.F. (1996) Uniform or heterogenous weight groups as factors in mixing weanling pigs. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 76, 171-176.

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Fraser, D. 1980. A review of the behavioural mechanisms of milk ejection I of the domestic pig. Appl. Anim. Ethol. 6:247-256.

Fraser, D. 1987 Mineral-Deficient diets and the pigs attraction to blood: Implications for tail biting. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 67, 909-918

Gardner, J.M., Duncan, I.J.H. and Widowski, T.M. (2001) Effects of social 'stressors' on belly-nosing behaviour in early-weaned piglets: is belly-nosing an indicator of stress? Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 74 (2), 135-152

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Hemsworth , P.H., Beilharz, R.G. and Galloway, D.B. 1977. Influence of social conditions during rearing on the sexual behaviour of the domestic boar. Anim. Prod. 24: 245-251.

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Mendl, M., Zanella, A.J., Broom, D.M and Whittemore, C.T. (1995) Maternal social status and birth sex ratio in domestic pigs: An analysis of mechanisms. Anim. Behav. 50, 1361-1370.

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Pearce, G.P., Hughes, P.E. and Booth, W.D. (1988) The involvement of boar submaxillary salivary gland secretions in boar induced precocious puberty attainment in the gilt. An. Repro. Sci. 16, 125-134.

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Stangel, G. and Jensen, P. (1991) Behaviour of semi naturally kept sows and piglets (except suckling) during 10 days post partum. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 31, 211-227.

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Pigs have colour vision and a panoramic range of about 310°, and binocular vision of 35-50°. It is thought they have no accommodation (i.e., they cannot focus). Pigs are inquisitive and this must be remembered when moving them. If they are not hurried and can explore as they go along, they can be driven without effort.

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This agonistic behavior is described as head butting. When pigs are feeling threatened they will either head - to - head butt, head to flank, or head to legs to knock the person out by their feet. According to Dr. Lugar, pigs are known as "midget linebackers" and will come after your legs with their head if they feel threatened or uncomfortable in any way.

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Olfactory: Using odor from urine and fecal glands to help them identify other pigs. Another interesting example is when they they release alarm substances in their urine to communicate danger to other pigs.
Visual: Tail and ear movements indicate the emotional state of a pig. Curled tail on a piglet is an indication of general well-being.
Auditory: 20 different known types of vocalization including those used during feeding and social behavior to communicate danger.
Tactile: Piglets huddle together in their litter to keep warm and stimulate each other.
https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/about-pigs.pdf

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Pigs have a very strong sense of smell and hearing so they are quite easy to train with those sensory cues. However, too little is known about their visual capacities but they are most likely red-green color blind. Scientists have done visual experiments with them like using images that can be projected onto touch screens during discrimination experiments or similar tasks with humans, primates, or chicken as subjects. Beside auditory reinforcers, sweet solutions can be used as effective reinforcers, and quinine can be added to food if an aversive taste experience is needed. Somatosensory information concerning pigs is as yet lacking, and should be further investigated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3040303/

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This gestation crate for the sows is set up so that the sow can't move back or turn around. This reinforcement allows for the protection of the piglets. There's areas on the side for the piglets that have a heating pad and room to move around.The danger with this is that the sow could potentially lay on a piglet if the piglet is underneath the sow trying to drink milk.

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Pigs tested with food rewards in two operant conditioning tasks helped support the idea that food can be used as a motivator in learning behaviors, which suggests that handlers and managers can use food as a reward in positive reinforcement training and to assist with habituation to humans and handling.

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CONDITIONING METHODS FOR ANIMALS IN AGRICULTURE: A REVIEW

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The senior author has been conducting research on animal behavior in Brazil since the late 1990s. During this time he has had the opportunity to interact with many Brazilian researchers interested in the behavior of farm animals.

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An example of a sensitive period in pigs is when they are first weaned and have to establish dominance hierarchy. When they are first separated from their mothers the pigs must establish their dominance amongst other pigs in the litter. The establishment usually occurs within 24 hours in the group of weaned pigs but the aggressiveness drops dramatically after 1 hour. This is an important sensitive period because the dominance hierarchy is important as the social rank appears to influence productivity. Some workers have said that social rank influences growth, while others found that weight was not correlated with the dominance or sex.

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Vision and other special senses

Pigs have colour vision and a panoramic range of about 310°, and binocular vision of 35-50°. It is thought they have no accommodation (i.e., they cannot focus). Pigs are inquisitive and this must be remembered when moving them. If they are not hurried and can explore as they go along, they can be driven without effort. The extent to which pigs have colour vision is still a source of some debate. However, the presence of rods and cones with two distinct wavelength sensitivities in the blue andgreen frequencies (Lomas et al., 1998) suggests that at least some colour vision is present.

Pigs have a well-developed sense of smell and use is made of this in Europe where they locate underground truffles. Hearing is also well developed and localisation of sounds is made by moving the head. Olfactory rather than visual stimuli are used in the identification of conspecifics (Houpt, 1998).

Pigs learn quickly to manipulate food and water devices, to turn fans on and off (Ingram and Legge,1970) and to turn on a source of radiant heat (Ingram et al., 1975).

Auditory stimuli are used extensively by pigs as a means of communication in all social activities (Gonyou, 2001). Alarm or aversive stimuli are transmitted to conspecifics not only by auditory cues but also via pheromones (Vieuille-Thomas and Signoret, 1992).

Social organisation, dominance hierarchies and leadership

The basis of the social structure in feral pigs is the matriarchal herd of several females and their offspring (Kurz and Marchington, 1972). Males are not permanently associated with such herds, and are often solitary or in bachelor groups.

In the domestic situation pigs may be kept together with littermates throughout their lives or be grouped with strange pigs of similar age and size. There are two types of social organisation in the domestic pig (Signoret et al.,1975):

a. Teat order;

b. Dominance hierarchy.

Teat order. Within the first few hours to two weeks after farrowing, the piglets become capable of recognising their positions on the udder and preferentially attach themselves to anterior rather than posterior teats. This was shown in the early work of Donald (1973a, 1973b) and confirmed by many later workers (Hemsworth et al.,1976). It has been shown that stimulation of the anterior teats appeared to be important in causing milk letdown (Fraser, 1973) so it might be to the advantage of the entire litter to have these teats occupied by healthy piglets. The teat order may function as a type ofterritorial spacing system which, in turn, means a stable family life with minimum competition.

Most fights that occur in young piglets are around the udder (Hartstock and Graves, 1976) and more fights were won at the permanent nursing site than away from it. They called this the 'home-court advantage' and found that fighting declined as the nursing order was established.

Using an artificial sow to rear groups of piglets, Jeppesen (1982) suggested that recognition of a teat in a particular area of the udder depended on visual orientation by means of reference points on the udder to find the area, and then the olfactory sense is used for the search within that area.

Dominance hierarchy. This is the social organisation established in groups of weaned pigs. When a number of unacquainted pigs are mixed together for the first time, they fight to establish a dominance hierarchy, usually of a simple linear type. The fighting behaviour is generally mouth-to-neck attacks with strong thrusts sideways and upwards (McBride et al.,1964).

The establishment of the hierarchy occurs within 24 hours of mixing but the level of aggression drops dramatically after about one hour (Symoens and Van Den Brande, 1969). The dominance hierarchy is important as the social rank appears to influence productivity. It has been shown by some workers (Bielharz and Cox, 1967; McBride et al.,1964) that social rank influences growth, while others (Meese and Ewbank, 1973a) found that weight was not correlated with dominance or sex. The dominance hierarchy is important as a group stabiliser, but under adverse, intensive conditions, animals low on the hierarchy may be disadvantaged by lack of food and water.

The top-ranking pig can be removed from the group for up to 25 days and on return will still retain its position, but only if the social group it left was stable (Otten et al., 1997). A pig at the bottom of the hierarchy is treated as a stranger and attacked when returned after three days (Ewbank and Meese, 1971). Pigs probably recognise each other by sight and smell.

It is an advantage in a husbandry system to have a stable social organisation so that the pigs can settle down and grow and it may be that a system of 'birth-to-slaughter-weight-in-one-pen', in which pigs remain members of the same unchanged social group from birth to slaughter, is a way to reduce disturbances (Ewbank, 1978; Sainsbury D. and Sainsbury, P., 1979).

Huddling behaviour. Pigs are very susceptible to hot conditions and the rate of sweating is very low, so there is inadequate thermoregulatory compensation by respiratory evaporative loss. In the feral state, pigs seek shade and wallow in mud or water and become more active at night (Mount, 1979). Young pigs are sensitive to cold and a behavioural feature retained through a pig's life is the stimulus to huddle with littermates (Mount, 1979). Nest-building activity in the natural state provides shelter from environmental extremes.

Leadership. The work of Meese and Ewbank (1973b) showed no clear relationship between leadership, exploratory behaviour or social rank in groups of pigs in an outdoor area.

Dominant pre-weaned piglets have higher growth rates than subordinates due to suckling the more anterior teats (which secrete the most milk and have the lowest incidence of mastitis), allowing their dominance to be maintained through to post-weaning (Dyck et al., 1987).

Agonistic behaviour among piglets will decrease if they are regrouped during lactation rather than postweaning (Olsson and Samuelsson, 1993).

Instability of the dominance hierarchy increases with stocking density, thus increasing stress andaggression. This appears to depress the immune system and thus heighten the herd's susceptibility to disease (Turner et al., 2000).

Grouping pigs by weight heterogeneously rather than homogeneously, as is the current practice, mayincrease growth rate and reduce hierarchical conflict by allowing clear weight differentiation among littermates (Francis et al., 1996).

Odour masking, by methods such as creating a familiar odour on all pigs, masking the odour of unfamiliar pigs, and the use of pheromones and/or artificial compounds, has had little, if any, effect in limiting aggression and increasing hierarchical stability (Gonyou, 1997).

Isolation from a social group is very stressful for pigs and may result in stereotypies or attempts to escape (Gonyou, 2001).

Sexual behaviour

Courtship behaviour lasts only a short time when a boar is placed in a small pen with an oestrous female. The sow plays the critical role of meeting sexual partners as boars show equal choice between an oestrous and an anoestrous sow. The male sniffs the female, noses sides, flanks and vulva, and emits a 'mating song' of soft guttural grunts (6-8 seconds). He foams at the mouth and moves his jaw from side to side as the female poses and bites the male's ears gently. When the sowbecomes stationary the boar mounts. Androstenone within boar saliva aids in eliciting the standing response in the sow (Gonyou, 2001). Some sows are more attractive to boars than others and occasionally a sow may avoid and refuse to stand for a specific boar. Rearing females in isolation from males delays the standing response of the females once they are introduced to boars (Soede and Schouten, 1991).

Pheromones in boar saliva and preputial secretions induce oestrus in gilts and sows (this is known as the boar effect) (Pearce et al., 1988).

The presence of stimuli from boars (namely odour) will induce earlier puberty in gilts than if no other stimuli were present (Hemsworth et al., 1988).

Because an oestrous sow will stand near the boar (Bressers et al., 1991), penning breeding females adjacent to a boar makes identification of oestrous sows easy.

The social environment that boars have been raised in influences their levels of sexual activity (Hemsworth et al.,1977). Boars that are raised individually with no visual contact with immature females, but who can hear and smell the females, have reduced copulation frequency and shorter average duration of ejaculation compared to those raised in all-male or male-female groups. Boars that engage in more courting activity, especially nosing of the sow's flanks before mating, have higher conception rates (Hemsworth et al.,1978). This study suggested that extra flank-nosing might stimulate oxytocin release from the sow's pituitary gland and this could increase sperm transport and the number of sperm in the oviduct and so increase the chances of fertilisation.

Dominant boars cover the markings of subordinate animals with urine that is often contaminated withpreputial secretions (Mayer and Brisbin, 1986).

Maternal-offspring behaviour

In a paddock the sow will nest-build for up to six hours before parturition. She hollows out a depression and lines it with straw, grass, sticks, or other available material. While farrowing crates in intensive piggeries prevent much of this nest-building behaviour, many elements are still present and the sow will often perform similar activities to those of pigs provided with nesting material (Blackshaw J. and Blackshaw, A.,1982).

Pigs of lower social status tend to produce litters with piglets that are lighter in weight (Mendl et al.,1992).

Dominant sows give birth to more male piglets than do subordinate ones (Mendl et al., 1995).

Compared to other mammals, pigs display complex nursing and suckling behaviour (Fraser, 1980; Signoret et al.,1975). Nursing is frequent, every 50-60 minutes, and the sow requires stimulation from piglets before milk let-down. Sensory inputs (vocalisation, odours from mammary and birth fluids and hair patterns of the sow) are particularly important immediately post-birth to facilitate teat location by the piglets (Rohde Parfet andGonyou, 1991).

Initially, the piglets jostle for position at the udder, then each piglet massages around its respective teat with its snout, during which time the sow grunts at slow, regular intervals. Each series of grunts varies in frequency, tone and magnitude, indicating the stages of nursing to the piglets (Algers, 1993). The phase of competition for teats and of nosing the udder, lasts for about one minute, and ends when milk flow begins. In the third phase, the piglets hold the teats in their mouths and suck with slow mouth movements (one per second), and the rate of the sow's grunting increases and lasts about 20 seconds. The grunt peak in the third phase of suckling does not coincide with milk ejection but ratherthe release of oxytocin from the pituitary into the bloodstream (Castren et al., 1989). Phase four coincides with the period of main milk flow (10-20 seconds' duration) when the piglets suddenly draw back slightly from the udder and start sucking with rapid mouth movements of about three per second. The sow grunts rapidly, lower in tone and often in quick runs of three or four, during this phase. Finally, the flow stops and so does the grunting of the sow and the piglets may dart from teat to teat andrecommence suckling with slow movements, or nosing the udder.

Piglets massage and suckle the sow's teats after milk flow ceases as a way of letting the sow know their nutritional status. This helps her to regulate the amount of milk released from that teat in future sucklings. The more intense the post-feed massaging of a teat, the greater the future milk release from that teat will be (Jensen, Gustafsson and Augustsson, 1998).

It is often hard to tell if the nursing episode is initiated by the sow or the piglets and almost any disturbance causes the piglets to rise, squeal and then nurse. The sound of one litter nursing may initiate nursing among other litters. Fostering piglets from one litter to another is often carried out in the pig industry and it is recognised that sows may react aggressively to foster piglets and that suckling periods are disrupted. Horrell and Bennett (1981) exchanged three piglets between five pairs of littersat seven days of age after the teat order had been established. Compared with control litters, crossfostering disrupted the teat order relationships of the whole litter. Weight gain of fostered piglets during the second week was reduced to 79% of that in their nonfostered littermates. If fostering has to be done, it has more chance of success if the piglets are only one to three or four days old. Cross-fostering of piglets should be undertaken before teat order is established and involve movement of larger piglets rather than small ones to minimise teat order disruption and associated mortality and production losses (Gonyou, 2001).

In the natural environment, farrowing nests are built at least 100 m from the communal nest to improve piglet survival (Jensen, 1989).

PGF2a appears to be the hormonal regulator of nestbuilding behaviours such as nosing, rooting and pawing to create a depression, as well as the gathering of straw to line the nest (Burne, Murfitt and Johnston, 2001).

By the time piglets are 6 days old, they have begun to follow their mother (Stangel and Jensen, 1991).

Recognition between the sow and her piglets is by olfactory and vocal cues (Jensen and Redbo, 1987).

Without human interference, weaning is finished by the time the piglets are about 17 weeks old, but it may begin as early as 4 weeks of age when the mother begins to reduce her nursing efforts (Jensen and Recen, 1989).

Abnormal behaviour

Abnormal behaviours often found in pig units include:

1. Tail and ear biting (Blackshaw, 1981);

2. Cannibalism;

3. Reproductive behaviour problems such as abnormal mating behaviour and abnormal maternal behaviour;

4. Eating too much or too little; dominance relationships that prevent some animals from having access to food and water;

5. Abnormal dunging habits;

6. Persistent inguinal nose thrusting (PINT) (Blackshaw, 1981). PINT is defined as occurring when a pig repeatedly thrusts its nose into the inguinal area of a resting pig with the top of its snout, until the recipient pig moves. It is a behaviour pattern of high-ranking pigs, although other pigs do it;

7. Various stereotypies, which are repeated actions with no goal direction, have been described (Fraser, 1975) in tethered sows when not provided with straw;

8. Snout rubbing, when pigs rub their snouts on the flanks of other pigs causing necrosed areas (Allison, 1976).

These behavioural problems are easy to see and tell us something about the mental well-being of the animals. However, we do not know if animals experience emotional feelings in the same way as humans. Perhaps, the important thing to recognise is that these abnormal behaviours tell us that all is not well in the husbandry system.

A deficiency in iron may contribute to the incidence of tail biting (Fraser, 1987), but other factors have since been ranked as being of greater importance.

The incidence of cannibalism such as tail and ear biting has exceeded 10% of pigs in some studies (Arey, 1991).

Stereotypies may increase in prevalence through a piggery via social facilitation (Appleby, Lawrence and Illius, 1989).

Some stereotypies, such as ear sucking and biting, may be associated with low levels of fibre in the diet (Meunier-Salaün, Edwards and Robert, 2001).

Belly nosing/snout rubbing by piglets does not appear to be related to stress, diet quality or the presence of milk in the diet but is somehow related to the age at weaning (Gardner, Duncan and Widowski, 2001).

Abnormal behaviours, such as tail and ear biting, stereotypies and belly nosing, may be redirected rooting or nosing behaviour caused by barren commercial environments (Beattie, Walker and Sneddon, 1996).

References

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pigs have colour vision and a panoramic range of about 310°, and binocular vision of 35-50°. It is thought they have no accommodation (i.e., they cannot focus). Pigs are inquisitive and this must be remembered when moving them. If they are not hurried and can explore as they go along, they can be driven without effort.

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Phenotypic and genotypic correlations were computed to investigate the existence of any relationship between learning behavior and traits of economic importance in these data. This data looked at body weight at 21 and 154 days of age and back-fat thickness were the economic traits used. To summarize the data, there is no large genotypic or phenotypic correlations that were clearly indicated between the 12 behaviors studied and traits of economic importance.

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This article discusses how certain pig behaviors are related to genetics. There's several types of behaviors in sows including maternal, aggressive, sexual, feeding and other farrowing behaviors. Behaviors have changed throughout the domestication process of boars so this article talks about how certain regions of chromosome 2, 6, 10, 14 and 15 can explain the genetic aspect of appearance of some behavioral patterns in domesticated sows.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
pig; behaviour; farrowing; behavioural patterns

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The behavior of pigs can be divided into several categories, which include maternal behavior, aggressive behavior, sexual behavior, feeding behavior, and various other forms of emotional behavior. Domestication has caused many changes in...

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I chose to focus on swine for this semester long padlet project because I have gained more
experience with pigs within the last month and would like to learn more. In Belize for my study abroad course, we were able to work with boars and piglets. While working with them I was intrigued by some of their behavioral traits and for that reason I chose to focus on swine. I am also taking a swine class this semester so I thought it would be fun to write about what I see on the farm and relate it to what we discuss in this class. One of the traits that surprised me when working with the pigs is that they are really dramatic, and I want to understand why.