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Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs
The grower-finisher stage accounts for 64% of the total on-farm herd water use. Part of this is consumed by the pigs, but a part is also wasted. Drinking water usage and wastage is affected by different factors. We investigated how different group sizes and different levels of enrichment affect wate...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8361099/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34385550 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95880-0 |
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author | Misra, Shilpi Bokkers, Eddie A. M. Upton, John Quinn, Amy J. O’Driscoll, Keelin |
author_facet | Misra, Shilpi Bokkers, Eddie A. M. Upton, John Quinn, Amy J. O’Driscoll, Keelin |
author_sort | Misra, Shilpi |
collection | PubMed |
description | The grower-finisher stage accounts for 64% of the total on-farm herd water use. Part of this is consumed by the pigs, but a part is also wasted. Drinking water usage and wastage is affected by different factors. We investigated how different group sizes and different levels of enrichment affect water usage (ingested plus wasted), water wastage, behavior and performance in grower-finisher pigs. Pigs (n = 672), 11 weeks of age (77 ± 2 days) were used for the experiment. The effect of group size: SMALL (12 pigs), MEDIUM (24 pigs), and LARGE (48 pigs) was assessed across two levels of enrichment (LOW—wooden post, hanging rubber toy, HIGH—Same as LOW + fresh grass). There was no effect of group size on water use or wastage. Pigs with HIGH enrichment (10.4 ± 0.4 L/pig/day) used less water than LOW enrichment (11.0 ± 0.4 L/pig/day; p < 0.001). The water wastage/drinker/hour was lower in pens with HIGH enrichment than LOW (p = 0.003). The drinking bout number (p = 0.037) and total occupancy/hour (p = 0.048) was also higher for pens with LOW than HIGH enrichment. Aggressive and harmful behaviour were performed less in LARGE groups and pens with HIGH enrichment. Thus, HIGH enrichment allowance reduced water usage and wastage so may have benefits for the environment, as well as animal welfare. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8361099 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-83610992021-08-17 Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs Misra, Shilpi Bokkers, Eddie A. M. Upton, John Quinn, Amy J. O’Driscoll, Keelin Sci Rep Article The grower-finisher stage accounts for 64% of the total on-farm herd water use. Part of this is consumed by the pigs, but a part is also wasted. Drinking water usage and wastage is affected by different factors. We investigated how different group sizes and different levels of enrichment affect water usage (ingested plus wasted), water wastage, behavior and performance in grower-finisher pigs. Pigs (n = 672), 11 weeks of age (77 ± 2 days) were used for the experiment. The effect of group size: SMALL (12 pigs), MEDIUM (24 pigs), and LARGE (48 pigs) was assessed across two levels of enrichment (LOW—wooden post, hanging rubber toy, HIGH—Same as LOW + fresh grass). There was no effect of group size on water use or wastage. Pigs with HIGH enrichment (10.4 ± 0.4 L/pig/day) used less water than LOW enrichment (11.0 ± 0.4 L/pig/day; p < 0.001). The water wastage/drinker/hour was lower in pens with HIGH enrichment than LOW (p = 0.003). The drinking bout number (p = 0.037) and total occupancy/hour (p = 0.048) was also higher for pens with LOW than HIGH enrichment. Aggressive and harmful behaviour were performed less in LARGE groups and pens with HIGH enrichment. Thus, HIGH enrichment allowance reduced water usage and wastage so may have benefits for the environment, as well as animal welfare. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8361099/ /pubmed/34385550 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95880-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Misra, Shilpi Bokkers, Eddie A. M. Upton, John Quinn, Amy J. O’Driscoll, Keelin Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
title | Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
title_full | Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
title_fullStr | Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
title_full_unstemmed | Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
title_short | Effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
title_sort | effect of environmental enrichment and group size on the water use and waste in grower-finisher pigs |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8361099/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34385550 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95880-0 |
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