Abstracts - Facilities and equipment

Two-level systems may reduce aggressive behaviour and social stress in pigs.

Method capable of monitoring feeding behaviour of pigs, without the need for additional sensors or individual marking.

The methods derived from this study open up avenues to further investigate airborne transmission and risk of virus introduction into farms contributing to the control of diseases in swine.

Narrower slat and gap widths may provide benefits in terms of feet health and sow comfort without compromising manure management and air quality.

Sodium hypochlorite, glutaraldehyde, caustic soda and potassium peroxymonosulfate showed the best ASFV inactivation rates.

A new slurry system with U-shaped slurry trays with flushing or scraping can handle slurry with a high amount of straw and can reduce the emissions of ammonia and odour from pig houses.

Adding ramps to nursery pig housing is a simple way to speed loading of market hogs, while providing benefits to efficiency and behavior in the nursery.

Pig activity changes can be recorded using passive infrared detectors which could serve as a monitoring tool for early detection of behavioral changes.

A 3D machine vision system has the potential to automate tail posture detection and provide early warning of tail biting on farm.

Grow-finish pigs located in peripheral pens had greater body temperatures and reduced gain-to-feed ratios despite similarities in pen ambient temperature and relative humidity between all pens.

Computational fluid dynamics model outputs could provide insight on which environmental drivers affect pigs’ lying location choice, even before a hog building is built and stocked.

The stress conditions with the highest accuracy in the detection were cold and thirst. Infrared skin temperature is a promising assessment of stress conditions.

A higher set-point temperature significantly lowered odour emissions compared to the reference, and had the potential to lower NH3 emissions.

Wood appears to be a safe material to use as environmental enrichment for pigs and a softer wood species were preferred by pigs with equal preference for the rubber floor toy.

The more straw provided (between 10 and 500 g) the higher the daily weight gain. The feed conversion ratio was not affected by the amount of straw provided.

The objective was to determine the effects of varying the number of pigs per feeder hole and group size on feed intake onset, growth performance, and lesions in nursery pigs.

According to the results, the same sow behavior can have different consequences in pens vs. in crates.

The objective of this pilot study was to determine if a fluorescent powder (Glo Germ) could be used to study the transfer of contamination from livestock trailers to the center alleyway and pens in the barn during marketing events.

Straw in a rack was found to be the best material to meet the behavioural needs of pigs.

The objective was to determine if the addition of a bench entry system in a commercial swine facility with a shower lowers the risk of personnel introducing environmental contamination.

Most of the tested organic materials are probably not likely to pose a hygienic risk to pigs and are suitable as enrichment material.

Conductive cooling pads have the potential to cool swine under both high temperature and high humidity conditions.

Under current biosecurity practices, a substantial risk exists for the spread of PRRS virus due to truck sharing.