“When a piglet cannot choose, she ceases to be a piglet.” ― adapted for piglets from the original by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Pigs forage to meet their nutrient requirements but also because exploring and searching for food is rewarding in itself. However, intensively farmed pigs have little opportunity to engage in natural foraging behaviours. If pigs’ behavioural needs are not met from early life onwards, resilience (the ability to cope with and recover from challenges) is reduced, while disease susceptibility and anxiety are increased, leading to poor welfare. In this project, we aim to give piglets the freedom of choosing different foraging activities (i.e., different food types and ways to forage) in order to simulate some of the experiences that they would get in nature.
We will investigate the importance and effects of having choice per se by measuring piglets’ willingness to work for choice and by assessing whether they prefer the freedom to choose different foraging activities vs. no choice. In addition, we will test if providing piglets with freedom to choose different foraging activities early in life will increase early-feed intake and indicators of positive welfare, and reduce post-weaning diarrhoea and tail biting.
We are now looking for students to join our team and make a difference for pig welfare!
For more infomation contact Associate Professor Else Verbeek: else.verbeek@slu.se