THE EFFECTS OF THE GESTATION AND FARROWING ENVIRONMENTS ON SOW AND PIGLET BEHAVIOR AND PIGLET SURVIVAL AND GROWTH IN EARLY LACTATION

The effects of gestation (individual stall vs. group pen) and farrowin g/lactation (conventional crate vs. prototype pair-pen system for two sows) treatments on sow and piglet behaviours considered relevant to p iglet survival were examined in a 2 X 2 factorial experiment involving 96 primiparous crossbred (Large White X Landrace) sows and their litt ers. The pair-pen system provided each sow with an area of about 10 m( 2) and included a specific farrowing area which contained features imp ortant for piglet survival similar to those found in farrowing crates, i.e. small area and heated creep. Sow and piglet behaviour and piglet survival and growth were measured to Day 8 of lactation. While a grea ter (P < 0.01) proportion of piglets were alive on Day 8 for sows in t he gestation stall treatment compared with the gestation pen treatment (88.6 vs. 83.3% of total born (TB)), mean litter size at birth tended to be smaller (P < 0.1) in the former treatment (8.6 vs. 9.4 piglets per sow). Piglet mortality was higher for sows housed in group pens du ring gestation and crates during farrowing than for sows in the other treatment combinations. Stillbirths occurred at a rate of 8.4 vs. 4.4% of TB and deaths of liveborn piglets in the first 3 days occurred at a rate of 11.0 vs. 6.1% of TB in the gestation pen-farrowing crate tre atment compared with the other treatments combined. Sows in the crate treatment compared with those in the pair-pen treatment directed less behaviour to their piglets (e.g. investigation of piglets: Day 1, 7.2 vs. 10.0% of observations, P < 0.01; vocalisation to piglets: Day 1, 9 .0 vs. 12.2% of observations, P < 0.05) and were less responsive while feeding at the trough to the loud vocalisations of one of their pigle ts (e.g. 57 vs. 89% of sows at Day 3 in the crate vs. pair-pen treatme nts stopped feeding in response to the piglet's vocalisations, P < 0.0 5). The results suggest that the gestation environment had only minima l, or at most short-term, effects on the behaviour of sows and piglets in early lactation. In contrast the farrowing environment had marked effects, particularly on sow behaviour. The present experiment demonst rates that modifying the farrowing environment affected maternal behav iour in sows. However, there is little evidence to support the hypothe sis that increased maternal behaviour was associated with improved pig let survival.