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Environmental enrichment during farrowing and lactation period. (A) Designed farrowing pen illustration which demonstrates two stages of the confinement bars, either when the sow is restrained (stage R) or after confinement bars are removed (stage F) to allow free movement and interaction between the sow and her piglets. Suggested locations for the jute and cotton ropes before and after farrowing are marked in green and blue, respectively. (B) Images of a sow and her piglets interact with cotton ropes (CR) and jute (J) provided as environmental enrichment in a farrowing/lactation pen. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Source publication
As pork is the most consumed meat worldwide, the welfare of animals in the swine industry has increasingly become a major public concern, which imposes a substantial pressure coming from customers, legislators and other stakeholders, to make management changes to improve the well-being of these animals. Several studies have demonstrated that provid...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... In this study, sows were housed in farrowing/lactation pens, under restraint for a limited time, from 3-5 days prior to the expected farrowing date and up to 10 days post-farrowing; thereafter, confinement bars were removed, to allow free movement and interaction between the sow and its piglets (illustrated in Figure 1A). However, the following protocol is also suitable for conventional farrowing crates, in which the sow is restrained throughout the entire lactation period. ...
Context 2
... For each farrowing pen/crate, prepare two pieces of jute (20 cm wide, one-meter-long), and two pieces of 100% natural, uncolored cotton ropes (2-3 cm in diameter), approximately one-meter-long each. 3. Tie the jute and cotton ropes (double overhand knot) to the pen/crates' bars, as illustrated in Figure 1, from its middle, allowing the two free ends of each piece to be hung towards the floor. The height of the jute and cotton ropes knots should be just lower than the sows' shoulder, while its free ends are just above the floor (Figure 1B-C). ...
Citations
... The saliva collection process is a non-invasive technique that has less impact on animals and does not cause severe stress responses (29). Salivary cortisol concentration has been widely used in welfare studies of cows and pigs, and is an ideal indicator for assessing the stress conditions of cows and pigs (30,31). In recent years, researchers have found that the long-term stress status of animals can be determined by assessing hair cortisol concentrations (32)(33)(34) and that hair samples have the advantage of being easy to collect and harmless to the animals. ...
Introduction
Stereotypic behaviours, especially oral stereotypic behaviours, are frequently expressed in farm animals. Tongue-rolling is the most common oral stereotypic behaviour in dairy cows (Bos taurus). If animals frequently display stereotypic behaviours, this is an indication of poor welfare. It has been suggested that animals express stereotypic behaviours as a way of coping with stress. As a result, animals with stereotypic behaviours may have lower levels of stress hormones than animals without stereotypic behaviours.
Methods
In this study, 916 Holstein cows in the first lactation were subjected to scan sampling behavioural observations 200 times for 10 days. All cows were assigned to either a stereotypic behaviours group (SB) or a control group (CON). The SB group was further subdivided into a tongue-rolling group (TR) and an other-stereotypic behaviours group (OS). The TR group was also split into an only tongue-rolling group (OTR) and a mixed tongue-rolling and other stereotypic behaviours group (TROS). Some cows in the TR group belonged to an extreme tongue-rolling group (ETR). Hair and saliva samples were collected from 601 cows to test cortisol concentrations and dairy herd improvement (DHI) data were collected from a total of 762 cows.
Results
There were no differences in hair or saliva cortisol concentrations between the groups (p>0.05), and the frequencies of tongue-rolling were not associated with cortisol concentrations (p>0.05). For DHI in cows, the milk protein percentage (p = 0.028), milk true protein percentage (p = 0.021) and milk crude protein percentage (p = 0.023) of cows in the ETR group were significantly lower than those in the CON group. For cows in ETR group, as the frequencies of tongue-rolling increased, the milk protein percentage (p = 0.034, r = 0.365), milk true protein percentage (p = 0.022, r = 0.393) and milk crude protein percentage (p = 0.035, r = 0.363) increased.
Discussion
We investigated the relationship between stereotypic behaviours and stress by using a non-invasive sampling method to minimise harm to the cows. We suggest that tongue-rolling may not be a way for cows to cope with stress, at least in terms of cortisol concentrations.
... Since cortisol secretion during the day is influenced by the physiological circadian rhythm and by feeding, sampling was always carried out at the same time of day. As shown in the picture (Fig. 1), a rope was hung in each pen for saliva collection according to MORGAN and RAZ (2019). To avoid soiling the rope, it was hung in the active area of each pen. ...
... Saliva collection with the aid of cotton ropes(MORGAN and RAZ, 2019) ...
In practice, the trace minerals zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) are often supplemented in excess of requirements in piglet feeding during the critical phase after weaning. High doses of Zn and Cu have a pharmacological effect on the piglet and are thus used to prevent diarrhea. Compared to other animal species, piglet manure contains the highest levels of Zn and Cu . The reason is that most of the highly dosed minerals are excreted unused by the piglet in its feces.
As heavy metals, Zn and Cu can accumulate in the soil and thus pose a great risk to the environment w ith negative consequences such as reduced plant growth, accumulation of heavy metals in edible animal products, pollution of the groundwater and possible antimicrobial resistance (BRUGGER & WINDISCH, 2015). In the past, the pharmacological administration of Zn has already been banned in the EU due to this risk, and the maximum allowable amount has been reduced. An additional reduction
of the maximum Cu content in piglet feed from 150 ppm to 25 ppm has also been discussed in recent years (EFSA 2016) because it has been shown that feeding is the key that needs to be turned in order to influence excretion (LINDERMAYER 2006) BRUGGER & WINDISCH (2017) were already working on methods to find out the ideal zinc content under university test conditions.
Accordingly, the objective of the study presented in the following was to investigate if it is possible to reduce the Zn and Cu levels under practical conditions in conventional piglet diets, without influencing performance or having a higher risk for diarrhea and increased cases of mortality. In addition, an innovative approach aimed to test whether the reduced levels of Zn and Cu led to higher stress levels in the animals.
... Effects of 24 h of stress on the saliva metabolome. For the examination of acute stress as detailed in Fig. 1, longitudinal saliva samples were collected non-invasively from 200 pigs by providing cotton ropes for the animals to chew as environmental enrichment [16][17][18] . The pigs were penned in groups and each rope provided a pooled sample from 5 to 10 animals. ...
... The pigs were housed in groups and each saliva sample represented a pooled sample from 5-10 pigs. Saliva was collected by providing 100% cotton ropes as environmental enrichment, similar to the method recently published [16][17][18] . In brief, pigs chew the cotton ropes for about 20 min; the saliva is collected by squeezing the rope with a sterile bag, and immediate transferring it into 15 mL plastic tubes; centrifugation of the saliva and aliquots into 2 mL tubes. ...
Major stress has systemic effects on the body that can have adverse consequences for physical and mental health. However, the molecular basis of these damaging effects remains incompletely understood. Here we use a longitudinal approach to characterise the acute systemic impact of major psychological stress in a pig model. We perform untargeted metabolomics on non-invasively obtained saliva samples from pigs before and 24 h after transfer to the novel physical and social environment of a slaughterhouse. The main molecular changes occurring include decreases in amino acids, B-vitamins, and amino acid-derived metabolites synthesized in B-vitamin-dependent reactions, as well as yet-unidentified metabolite features. Decreased levels of several of the identified metabolites are implicated in the pathology of human psychological disorders and neurodegenerative disease, suggesting a possible neuroprotective function. Our results provide a fingerprint of the acute effect of psychological stress on the metabolome and suggest candidate biomarkers with potential roles in stress-related disorders.
... For the examination of acute stress as detailed in Figure 1, longitudinal saliva samples were collected non-invasively from 200 pigs by providing cotton ropes for the animals to chew as environmental enrichment (Morgan et al., 2018Morgan and Raz, 2019). The pigs were penned in groups and each rope provided a pooled sample from 5-10 animals. ...
Major stress has systemic effects on the body that can have adverse consequences for physical and mental health. However, the molecular basis of these damaging effects remains incompletely understood. Here we use a longitudinal approach to characterise the acute systemic impact of major psychological stress in a pig model. We perform untargeted metabolomics on non-invasively-obtained saliva samples from pigs before and 24-hours after transfer to the novel physical and social environment of a slaughterhouse. The main molecular changes occurring include decreases in amino acids, B-vitamins, and amino acid-derived metabolites synthesized in B-vitamin-dependent reactions, as well as yet-unidentified metabolite features. Decreased levels of several of the identified metabolites are implicated in the pathology of human psychological disorders and neurodegenerative disease, suggesting a possible neuroprotective function. Our results provide a fingerprint of the acute effect of psychological stress on the metabolome and suggest candidate biomarkers with potential roles in stress-related disorders.
One Sentence Summary
Identification of metabolites decreased under acute psychological stress may lead to future discoveries for the prevention and treatment of stress-related disorders.
... psychosocial stress has been considered as an important risk factor driving gastrointestinal pathophysiology and disease susceptibility [3][4][5]. Recently, animal welfare has become of increasing concern to the swine industry as well as the general public [2], and the urgency for a reduction in the use of antibiotics in livestock has become evident with the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance [6][7][8]. Therefore, effective environmental enrichments in the farm, such as larger spaces, and the provision of rooting substrates, has been proposed as a potential strategy to improve pig welfare, as well as health. The benefits for animal welfare by providing enrichments have been well established in research [9]. ...
... Animal welfare and health could be improved via genetic selection, nutrition, housing, as well as through stress management that takes the role of the gut microbiota in behaviour into account [17]. In pigs, many studies have shown the adverse effects of conventional housing conditions of intensive farms on behaviour, the reactivity of the HPA axis and welfare [2,4,7,10,18]. Furthermore, in a previous study it was found that piglets reared under housing conditions with social and environmental enrichment showed lower disease susceptibility to co-infection of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae [3]. ...
Background
Conventional pig housing and management conditions are associated with gastrointestinal pathophysiology and disease susceptibility in early life. Developing new strategies to reduce both therapeutic and prophylactic antibiotic use is urgent for the sustainable swine production globally. To this end, housing methodology providing effective environmental enrichment could be a promising alternative approach to reduce antibiotic usage, as it has been proven to positively influence pig welfare and immune status and reduce susceptibility to infections. It is, however, poorly understood how this enriched housing affects systemic and local pulmonary immune status and gut microbiota colonization during early life. In the present study, we compared the effects of two housing conditions, i.e., conventional housing: (CH) versus enriched housing (EH), on immune status and gut microbiota from birth until 61 days of age.
Results
The expected benefits of enrichment on pig welfare were confirmed as EH pigs showed more positive behaviour, less aggression behaviour during the weaning transition and better human animal relation during the post weaning phase. Regarding the pigs’ immune status, EH pigs had higher values of haemoglobin and mean corpuscular volume in haematological profiles and higher percentages of T cells and cytotoxic T cells in peripheral blood. Furthermore, EH pigs showed higher ex vivo secretion of IL1ß and TNF-α after lipopolysaccharide stimulation of whole blood than CH pigs. The structure of the developing faecal microbiota of CH and EH pigs significantly differed as early as day 12 with an increase in the relative abundance of several bacterial groups known to be involved in the production of short chain fatty acids, such as Prevotella _2, Christensenellaceae _R_7_group and Ruminococcus gauvreauii group. Furthermore, the main difference between both housing conditions post weaning was that on day 61, CH pigs had significantly larger inter-individual variation of ileal and colonic microbiota than EH pigs. In addition to housing, other intrinsic factors (e.g., sex) were associated with gut microbiota development and immune competence.
Conclusions
In addition to the known welfare benefits for pigs, environmentally enriched housing also positively drives important aspects of the development of the immune system and the establishment of gut microbiota in early life. Consequently, EH may contribute to increasing productivity of pigs and reducing antibiotic use.
The hormonal and metabolic profile of conditionally healthy Yorkshire pigs of different age and sex groups was studied in an industrial pig farm. A statistically significant effect of age on the level of serum cortisol, triiodothyronine, and thyroxine in the studied pig groups was established. Increased cortisol levels compared to the literature data in almost all pig groups may indicate chronic stress, while increased secretion of thyroid hormones is an adaptive response associated with stress compensation. Biochemical parameters of blood serum in animals of different groups reflect age-related metabolic features. It was shown that the average parameter values for the groups as a whole are within the limits obtained by other authors. It was revealed that with age, there is a decrease in the content of glucose, triglycerides, and urea. At the same time, the level of total protein, albumins, and globulins in the blood serum of the studied pigs gradually increases with age. In some cases, reliable intersexual differences in the level of biochemical parameters were found, in particular, sows exceeded boars in cholesterol content, while the opposite pattern was noted for total protein. In general, the hormonal and metabolic profiles of the herd correspond to the “industrial” status of the complex. The ability to adapt, intensive protein, carbohydrate and fat metabolism are obviously fixed by targeted breed selection. The established reference values of the hormonal status and metabolic profile parameters can be used to characterize pigs of high-intensity meat breeds under industrial technology conditions.
