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Establishing Bedding Requirements during Transport and Monitoring Skin Temperature during Cold and Mild Seasons after Transport for Finishing Pigs
Animals
  • John J. McGlone, Texas Tech University
  • Anna K. Johnson, Iowa State University
  • Avi Sapkota, Texas Tech University
  • Rebecca K. Kephart, Iowa State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
5-1-2014
DOI
10.3390/ani4020241
Abstract

The broad aim of this study was to determine whether bedding level in the transport trailer influenced pig performance and welfare. Specifically, the objective was to define the bedding requirements of pigs during transportation in commercial settings during cold and mild weather. Animals (n = 112,078 pigs on 572 trailers) used were raised in commercial finishing sites and transported in trailers to commercial processing plants. Dead on arrival (DOA), non-ambulatory (NA), and total dead and down (D&D) data were collected and skin surface temperatures of the pigs were measured by infrared thermography. Data were collected during winter (Experiment 1) and fall/spring (Experiment 2). Total D&D percent showed no interaction between bedding level and outside air temperature in any experiments. Average skin surface temperature during unloading increased with outside air temperature linearly in both experiments (P < 0.01). In conclusion, over-use of bedding may be economically inefficient. Pig skin surface temperature could be a useful measure of pig welfare during or after transport.

Comments

This article is from Animals 4 (2014): 241, doi:10.3390/ani4020241. Posted with permission.

Rights
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Copyright Owner
John McGlone, et al
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
John J. McGlone, Anna K. Johnson, Avi Sapkota and Rebecca K. Kephart. "Establishing Bedding Requirements during Transport and Monitoring Skin Temperature during Cold and Mild Seasons after Transport for Finishing Pigs" Animals Vol. 4 Iss. 2 (2014) p. 241 - 253
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/anna_butters-johnson/63/