The aim of this experiment was to study the effects of six different management routines at the time of farrowing on latency to first suckle, heat loss, weight gain and postnatal mortality. A total ...of 872 piglets from 67 loose housed sows in a commercial pig unit were subjected to one of six different management routines: control (CON
n
=
14), no treatment; (CREEP
n
=
13), placed in creep area; (UDDER
n
=
10), placed at the udder; (DRY
n
=
10), dried and placed back where found; (DRYCREEP
n
=
9), dried and placed in creep area; and (DRYUDD
n
=
11), dried and placed at the udder. The latency from birth to first suckle, rectal temperature at birth, 2
hours and 24
hours were measured for each piglet, in addition to weight at birth, 2
hours and 24
hours. Latency from birth to first suckle was shortest for piglets in the DRYUDD treatment, followed by the UDDER treatment (
P
<
0.001). More live born piglets died in the UDDER treatment compared to the other treatments (
P
<
0.001), but there were no other differences between the treatments with regards to postnatal mortality. There was a significant interaction between treatment and batch, with a significantly lower postnatal mortality in the DRYUDD treatment than CON in batch 2, but not in batch 1 and 3 (
P
<
0.001). Large litter sizes resulted in a higher postnatal mortality in all treatments (
P
<
0.001), and tended to reduce latency to suckle (
P
<
0.1). In conclusion, drying the piglets after birth and placing them at the udder resulted in reduced postnatal mortality in batch 2, but not in the other two batches. Despite having the largest mean litter size of the treatments, less than 10% of the piglets in DRYUDD died, which is remarkably low for loose housed sows. Regardless of treatment, several piglet-related factors were found to be highly important for postnatal mortality, such as the number of functional teats per piglet (
P
<
0.001), birth weight (
P
<
0.001), the latency from birth to first suckle (
P
<
0.01), and rectal temperature at 2
hours after birth (
P
<
0.001).
This study focused on the impact of sow–piglet communication during pre-lying behaviour and piglet condition on piglet location before the sow was lying down and on the incidence of piglet crushing. ...Eighteen loose-housed, Yorkshire
×
Norwegian Landrace sows and their litters were studied on Day 1 and Day 3 post partum. The sow's pre-lying communication, consisting of the frequency of sow vocalization, sniffing and nudging piglets, was calculated per standing-to-lying event, and 260 events were analyzed. We also determined which component of the pre-lying behaviour influenced piglet location (piglets in an area identified as the danger zone and in the sow area) and piglet clustering at the moment of lying down. In contrast to what we predicted, sniffing increased the proportion of piglets (out of the litter size) in the danger zone (
P
<
0.05), sow area (
P
<
0.05) and piglet clustering (
P
<
0.05). Similarly, sow vocalization attracted the piglets to the sow and thus increased the proportion of piglets in the danger zone (
P
<
0.05). There was no effect of pre-lying communication, piglet location or piglet clustering on the incidence of crushing. Piglet mortality caused by crushing was 6.4% of live born piglets (
N
=
15). The frequency of pre-lying communication, such as sow vocalization decreased (
P
<
0.0001) and nudging tended to decrease (
P
<
0.1) from Day 1 to Day 3, whereas the frequency of sniffing remained stable. Piglets with higher birth weight were more likely to be present in the danger zone (
P
<
0.0001) on Day 1 whereas on Day 3 no effect of piglet weight was found. Rectal temperature had no effect on piglet presence in the danger zone on both days. The probability of crushing increased on Day 1 with decreasing piglet weight (
P
<
0.05). In conclusion, the more sows communicated with piglets, the more the piglets were attracted to stay in close proximity to the sow, however there was no association detected between sow pre-lying communication and piglet crushing. Close proximity of piglets to the sow during the first few days post partum outside the time of nursing seems likely to stimulate the mother–piglet bonding process while bringing benefits to piglets (heat, milk and protection) which might out weigh the risk of getting crushed by the mother.
Indoor farrowing systems are based upon the assumption that the newborn piglets will leave their mother after suckling and enter a heated creep area, but newborn piglets are motivated to remain close ...to the sow. Several creep area features attractive to piglets were used to attempt to increase time spent in the creep area the first two days after birth and to find out whether increased time spent in the creep area would affect early piglet mortality in farrowing pens. Forty-six loose-housed sows and their litters kept in individual farrowing pens were subjected to one of three creep area treatments; (1) control (CON); concrete floor in the creep area, (2) bedding (BED); an insulated and soft bedding in the creep area and (3) HUT; an insulated and soft bedding in the creep area plus an additional wall to increase the heat conserving capacity in the creep area. The pens were video-recorded from 0–72
h after birth and analysis was conducted from 08:00
h to 14:00
h and from 20:00
h to 02:00
h on each day. The attempts to make the creep area attractive did not increase the use of the creep area; piglets in the hut treatment spent less time in the creep area and more time resting near the sow than piglets in the CON and BED treatment. Improving the thermal comfort and increase the layer of bedding in the creep area did not increase time spent away from the sow, nor did it reduce piglet mortality. Quality of the creep area thus appears to have little impact on piglet survival.
