Willingness to approach a human in a nursery-pen environment may be a sensitive parameter for assessing vaccine reactivity 6 hours post vaccination.

To provide an assessment and conclusion on swine welfare, multiple measures can be evaluated including changes to the physiology, performance, health and behaviour of the pig. Human-pig interaction paradigms are one method to assess quality of care through pig behaviour between the caregiver and pig.

A study to determine if nursery pigs display different behaviors and postures pre- and post injection during the human-approach paradigm using a digital photographic image.

Study may suggest that reducing a pig's behavioral reactivity is an important component of improving feed efficiency; however, it may have implications for animal handling and facility design.

Research on a digital photograph system to document the pig response to a human observer in the home pen and then compare these results to a human observation in an approach-assessment paradigm.

Although it is generally proposed that animal welfare improves with selection for calmer animals that are less fearful and reactive to novelty, animals bred to be less sensitive with fewer desires may be undesirable from an ethical point of view.

Using the Five Domains Model can highlight numerous opportunities to improve current and future housing and management through the “neonatal and nursery pig perspective” with a focus on inducing positive mental states that can result in improved quality of life and welfare state.

This review paper will evaluate some factors that have influenced the development of swine welfare standards in the USA and describe programmes developed to improve and evolve on-farm swine welfare for the future.

Key elements of farm animal welfare range from (a) caretaker qualities; (b) record keeping and standard operating procedures; (c) animal- and resource-based measures; (d) communication to (e) caretaker empowerment. The ultimate on-farm welfare programme goal is to provide the highest animal care. This review will provide context to these key elements that in turn can be used to create or improve on-farm animal welfare programmes.

List of updates from PQA version 3 to vertion 4.

Training video for business continuity plan for farms to increase their foreign animal disease preparedness.

Informational sheet about detectable needle availability.

Informtional brochure about a line of detectable needles for animal use.

Standard of practice amendments to Iowa law to satisfy Iowa Code sections 17A.3 and chapter 169. 

The Common Swine Industry Audit (CSIA) Calculator is a tool designed to help producers and auditors determine the required sample sizes for animal assessments during farm audits. It ensures that a representative sample of pigs is audited across different production phases. 

Effective decision-making regarding animal welfare involves integrating scientific knowledge with societal factors, including ethical, legal, economic, and cultural considerations. The ISU Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine team is actively involved in research, education, and outreach initiatives aimed at improving animal husbandry and housing, assessing animal welfare, and training animal care personnel.

Federal regulations governing humane slaughter methods, handling requirements, and facility standards for livestock processing operations.

IFAC provides Iowans access to animal care experts who know what they are talking about when it comes to farm animal care and can even help farmers find additional information on the latest in farm animal care resources.

The Common Industry Audit Standard allows packers and customers to verify that a pork production site is in compliance with established standards for swine care and pre-harvest pork safety.

Research has shown that using good animal handling practices benefits the pig, the handler and the industry. TQA certification demonstrates that a handler is committed to promoting and protecting pig well-being. Incidents of poor animal handling or abuse are considered to be ethically wrong and unacceptable.

PQA Plus® Certification addresses food safety, animal well-being, environmental stewardship, worker safety, public health and community. PQA Plus is also ISO Compliant, meaning it meets the highest international standards for animal care.

An unsupportive farm culture was identified as a critical barrier to timely euthanasia decision-making, suggesting that caretaker characteristics may play a role in the success of any timely euthanasia programme. This present study has highlighted areas for future research and demonstrated the need to extend educational efforts both to swine industry leaders and producers to improve overall animal welfare by ensuring timely euthanasia in swine.

The G-Ar treatment was removed due to ethical concerns associated with prolonged induction. In conclusion, depression score did not affect pig responses to euthanasia with CO2 gas, but did affect responses to Ar. Furthermore, Ar was associated with a prolonged euthanasia process, including frequencies and durations of distress behaviours.

Regardless of disease status, P-CO2 was associated with superior animal welfare, with shorter latency to loss of consciousness than P-Ar, and shorter duration of ataxia and duration and intensity of righting responses.

When a pig becomes ill, injured or otherwise disadvantaged, the courses of action are treatment or euthanasia. While producers naturally wish they could make every sick or injured pig well, in some cases euthanasia may be the best option for the well-being of the animal; it is unethical to allow an animal to suffer.

The objectives of this study were to assess efficacy and welfare implications of gas euthanasia when applied to weaned and neonate pigs.

To assist veterinarians and other industry professionals in training new and seasoned caretakers, an interactive computer-based training program was created. It consists of three modules, each containing five case studies, which cover three distinct production stages (breeding stock, piglets, and wean to grower-finisher pigs).

Alternative methodologies to Ma-BFT will be discussed in this fact sheet, highlighting benefits and challenges of these methods, along with implementation techniques.

Gilts given rope enrichment spent less time lying and more time sitting compared to when no enrichment was provided. The results of this study suggest that while the addition of flavours to cotton ropes caused minor changes in enrichment interaction and behaviour, provision of rope enrichment was beneficial for increasing activity in stalled gilts.

Weaning is one of the most traumatic events that piglets experience and includes numerous acute and chronic stressors including separation from their mother, changes in their nutritional supply and accommodation, mixing of unfamiliar pigs, and transportation.

The most important aspects that this exercise highlights are perhaps the fact that conventional stalls rank poorly for both sow and piglet welfare, based on the review of the scientific literature, but that modifications including bedding, mixing of litters pre-weaning, increasing weaning age slightly and offering creep feed can certainly improve welfare within the system.

Farrowing stalls have become widely accepted by the industry for numerous reasons: they have made sow management easier, efficiently utilized space, and they can help to reduce piglet mortality [2]. However, the farrowing stall has received criticism due to potential detrimental effects it may impose on the welfare of the sow (such as occurrence of shoulder ulcers, behaviors considered problematic, and sow’s movements are more restricted). The development of an alternative, economical farrowing system that retains the advantages of the conventional farrowing stall, and provides welfare benefits to the sow and piglets, could be beneficial to the industry.

This review paper will (a) address water functions, requirement and quality, (b) describe drinking behaviours and patterns, (c) explain factors that impact drinking behaviour and water intake and (d) discuss the water systems and pen designs that enhance drinking behaviour.

More nipple cup drinkers to fewer pigs on the day of weaning into a conventional nursery results in reduced aggression and more visits to the drinker.

Data from this study indicates that the use of the traditional OBS method for quantifying drinking behavior in pigs can be misleading. Quantifying drinking behavior and perhaps other behavioral events via the OBS method must be more accurately validated.

Under the conditions of this study, all pigs were able to visit the nipple cup drinker between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm; thus, withholding water for 15 hours to encourage consumption of medicated water is not recommended.

Determine the effect of drinker number (1, 2, or 3 drinkers/pen) on the frequency and duration for drinker visits, aggressive interactions in the drinker vicinity, drinker location preference, and water disappearance for 7-week-old nursery pigs.

The goal of this study was to determine if enrichment ropes would entice neonatal piglets away from the sow and reduce preweaning mortality.

Wean-to-finish mats are commonly used on-farm to provide comfortable resting areas for newly weaned pigs and to minimize feed waste around feeders. The objective of this project was to test a commercial wean-to-finish mat as a humane handling tool for non-ambulatory grow-finish pigs.

Handling tools were tested on-farm using pig cadavers (59-134 kg) to evaluate effectiveness based on employee effort and opinion. Our results support the sked and deer sled as effective handling tools to move grow-finish pigs, while the modified deer sled was ineffective.

Discuss a variety of on-farm design factors that can affect pig movement at the time of marketing.

The objectives of these studies were to evaluate the loading system effects [traditional chute (TC) vs. prototype loading gantry (PLG)] on i) welfare measures at loading and ii) performance measures and transport losses at the harvest facility for the market-weight pig (Sus scrofa).

An investigation that concludes that loading systems that reduce the incidence of poor pork quality can be designed.

Handling and movement is stressful for any size and type of pig, and even under the “best” conditions can cause significant changes in the pigs’ physiology, their behavior and consequently negatively impact pig performance and final meat quality.

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of pre-sorting on stress responses at the time of loading and unloading and how it impacts transport losses in the market weight pig.

Dr. Matt Ritter, Cargill Director of Technical Services, and Dr. Anna Johnson, Professor of Animal Behavior and Welfare at Iowa State University, join the PigX podcast to talk about transport losses. From animal care to employee management, there are multiple parts and pieces to animal losses during the transportation process.

The specific objectives of this paper are 1) to discuss pig transport losses from a historical perspective; 2) to determine the incidence and economic impact of transport losses in the United States; and 3) to describe the symptoms and metabolic characteristics of fatigued pigs.

Adding ramps to nursery pig housing is a simple way to speed loading of market hogs, while providing benefits to efficiency and behavior in the nursery.

By understanding how pigs interact with their environment during marketing, researchers, producers, and personnel at the abattoir may begin to identify, prioritize, and attempt to minimize or eliminate these stressors. This process will ultimately decrease transportation losses, improve pork quality, and increase profitability.

The objective of this study was to identify environmental and management factors that are associated with the frequency of fatigued, injured, and dead pigs on arrival and in resting pens during lairage at a commercial Midwest abattoir.

Presorting market-weight pigs reduced loading time and some stress responses on farm; however, no treatment differences were observed for stress responses or transport losses at the slaughter facility.

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of grow-finish group sizes on stress response and transport losses from the market-weight pig.

The NFSD with presorting reduced physical signs of stress during loading and unloading and reduced total losses at the plant by 66% compared with losses attained when pigs were loaded from the TFSD with no presorting.

This study aims to determine the effects of bedding level on trailer temperature and humidity between average air temperatures of 4 °C and 18 °C. Relative humidity was greatest when higher levels of bedding were used during loading and transport in cold but not mild weather.

Management strategies to reduce transport losses include implementing training programs for handlers and drivers, better preparing pigs for transport, and minimizing stress throughout the marketing process.

Maintaining the environment inside the transport trailer is crucial for pig comfort. This study aims to determine the amount of ventilation, or varied side-wall boarding, required to keep pigs within their thermal comfort zone.

Pigs do not have efficient physiological means (such as sweating) to cool themselves. Therefore, being transported in hot weather can cause heat stress and even death. Sprinkling the pigs and/or bedding may facilitate cooling, thereby improving well-being and survivability of pigs arriving at the plant.

Typically, bedding is used to improve pig comfort and welfare during transport. This study assesses the level of bedding required during transport of finishing pigs in semi-truck trailers.