Effect of Room Temperature on Lactating Sow Behaviours and the Usage of Covered Creep Box for Pre-weaning Piglet
Piglet crushing is related to sow and piglet behaviours,and their behaviours are influenced by room temperature.Knowledge of the behavioural difference in lactating sow and the usage of the heated creep box for pre-weaning piglet in low and high room temperature are meaningful to guide cooling for farrowing/lactating sows and feeding and management strategy.The aim of the present study was to study whether room temperature (16.5℃ designated as cold and 31℃ designated as hot) on crucial behaviours closely associated to neonatal piglet crushing for lactating sows,the crushing mortality and the usage of covered creep box for preweaning piglets.Results showed that sows” risky behaviours associated to piglet survival could decrease.A significant difference in piglet crushing mortality was found during the study (P＜0.001).No piglet was crushed by sow and encountering crushing risk for cold litters,but crushing mortality was higher (15.21±5.67％) in the hot litter.The usage of the covered creep box at low room temperature is higher than for high room temperature (31℃) (P＜0.001).
sow and piglet behaviours room temperature crushing mortality
Gu-zhaobing Wang-chaoyuan Shi-zhengxiang Li-baoming
Key Lab of Agricultural Engineering in Structure and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture,China;Depa Chongqing Academy of Animal Sciences, Rong Chang, Chongqing 406420, China
国内会议
重庆
英文
605-609
2009-10-24（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）