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Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Animal welfare is a major challenge that most European pig producers have been facing in recent decades to comply with EU legislation and to meet the increasing societal and market demand for pork produced in a sustainable way. Pig welfare is ruled in terms of minimum requirements fo...

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Autores principales: Ferrari, Paolo, Ulrici, Alessandro, Barbari, Matteo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8614386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34827955
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11113221
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author Ferrari, Paolo
Ulrici, Alessandro
Barbari, Matteo
author_facet Ferrari, Paolo
Ulrici, Alessandro
Barbari, Matteo
author_sort Ferrari, Paolo
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Animal welfare is a major challenge that most European pig producers have been facing in recent decades to comply with EU legislation and to meet the increasing societal and market demand for pork produced in a sustainable way. Pig welfare is ruled in terms of minimum requirements for housing and management, but stakeholders have considered that both farm-level and animal-based indicators are fundamental to monitor animal welfare. Some of the welfare issues still affecting fattening pigs are the lack of space, bedding and manipulable material, and the continued practice of routine tail docking of pigs. Tail docking is applied routinely across most European countries to reduce the occurrence of severe tail biting lesions, despite its ban in the EU. An observational study on 51 pig farms in seven EU countries, aimed at investigating housing risk factors for the welfare of finishing pigs, showed that body weight and presence of bedded solid floored resting area (BED) identify three clusters of farms. The outcomes of this study confirmed that BED and larger availability of space per pig, above the minimum requirement of EU legislation, can limit the occurrence of lesions in pigs with undocked tails. ABSTRACT: Pig welfare is affected by housing conditions, the minimum requirements of which are set up by EU legislation. Animal and non-animal-based measures are useful indicators to investigate housing risk factors for pig welfare. An observational study on 51 pig farms in seven EU countries, aimed at investigating housing risk factors for the welfare of finishing pigs, showed body weight and presence of bedded solid floored resting area (BED) identifying three clusters of farms. Farms with BED were featured by no or limited tail docking, larger availability of manipulable materials and lower number of pigs per farm and per annual work unit. In these farms, less skin and ear lesions were found, compared with lean pigs of farms without BED, which were characterized by lower pig space allowance, mortality rate and medication cost. In farms without BED, heavy pigs were featured by more space per pig, more pigs per drinker and higher mortality rate and medication cost per pig, compared to lean pigs. No statistical difference in tail lesions was found between the three farm clusters, although tail docking was performed in all farms without BED and not performed on most farms with BED.
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spelling pubmed-86143862021-11-26 Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms Ferrari, Paolo Ulrici, Alessandro Barbari, Matteo Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Animal welfare is a major challenge that most European pig producers have been facing in recent decades to comply with EU legislation and to meet the increasing societal and market demand for pork produced in a sustainable way. Pig welfare is ruled in terms of minimum requirements for housing and management, but stakeholders have considered that both farm-level and animal-based indicators are fundamental to monitor animal welfare. Some of the welfare issues still affecting fattening pigs are the lack of space, bedding and manipulable material, and the continued practice of routine tail docking of pigs. Tail docking is applied routinely across most European countries to reduce the occurrence of severe tail biting lesions, despite its ban in the EU. An observational study on 51 pig farms in seven EU countries, aimed at investigating housing risk factors for the welfare of finishing pigs, showed that body weight and presence of bedded solid floored resting area (BED) identify three clusters of farms. The outcomes of this study confirmed that BED and larger availability of space per pig, above the minimum requirement of EU legislation, can limit the occurrence of lesions in pigs with undocked tails. ABSTRACT: Pig welfare is affected by housing conditions, the minimum requirements of which are set up by EU legislation. Animal and non-animal-based measures are useful indicators to investigate housing risk factors for pig welfare. An observational study on 51 pig farms in seven EU countries, aimed at investigating housing risk factors for the welfare of finishing pigs, showed body weight and presence of bedded solid floored resting area (BED) identifying three clusters of farms. Farms with BED were featured by no or limited tail docking, larger availability of manipulable materials and lower number of pigs per farm and per annual work unit. In these farms, less skin and ear lesions were found, compared with lean pigs of farms without BED, which were characterized by lower pig space allowance, mortality rate and medication cost. In farms without BED, heavy pigs were featured by more space per pig, more pigs per drinker and higher mortality rate and medication cost per pig, compared to lean pigs. No statistical difference in tail lesions was found between the three farm clusters, although tail docking was performed in all farms without BED and not performed on most farms with BED. MDPI 2021-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8614386/ /pubmed/34827955 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11113221 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ferrari, Paolo
Ulrici, Alessandro
Barbari, Matteo
Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms
title Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms
title_full Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms
title_fullStr Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms
title_short Analysis of Housing Risk Factors for the Welfare of Lean and Heavy Pigs in a Sample of European Fattening Farms
title_sort analysis of housing risk factors for the welfare of lean and heavy pigs in a sample of european fattening farms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8614386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34827955
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11113221
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