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Bulletin No. 19 - Fall 2004
MiscelleanousWelfare
BEATTIE V
Getting the correct perspective on welfare
Pig Journal, 2004, Volume 53, 112-122
This paper is a relevant review of what pig welfare means. The importance of understanding the behavior of pigs in order to design suitable housing environments for them is underlined and some general (anthropomorphic) opinions are refuted. The results of several studies which consisted in comparing intensive with enriched environment housing are reported. In the enriched environment pigs were provided with bedding substrate, major space and rooting area. The first element to take into consideration is that pigs are exploratory animals and that the lack of material to root makes them redirect this behavior to their pen mates resulting in tail biting. As an example, a mere rack containing mushroom compost suspended above the pen allowed to eliminate tail biting showing that harmful behavior is inversely proportional to time spent in exploring. Another interesting fact is that a classification based on the results of a study gives peat, mushroom compost and sawdust as the substrates preferred by pigs for bedding, barley straw ranking penultimate just before concrete. In addition, providing major space was shown not to be beneficial neither to pig welfare nor to production performance. However, provision of sawdust was shown to increase aggressive interactions between sows. This apparently contradictory result demonstrates how carefully each situation is to be studied when dealing with animal welfare.
