articles about behaviour-welfare in Abstracts

Primiparous sow aggression may be reduced by increasing space allowance during gestation with social training during the growing period.

Dominance rank of an individual can be estimated according to the feeding order, body weight or parity if there is enough variability in the group.

Biological sex mediates, at least in part, the physiological response to heat stress.

Frequent emission of short sounds can reduce time spent sleeping and cause behavior changes. However, gestating sows can habituate to the sound stimuli and return to normal behavior.

Enrichment did not enhance the speed of recovery from challenges in pigs, although there were indications of reduced stress

Results suggested that farrowing pens with temporary crating facilitated mother-young interactions and showed a higher crushing rate.

The provision of nesting material to sows prior to farrowing can increase sow maternal care traits and piglet performance.

Environmental enrichment with cubes appears to have the greatest effect when applied post-weaning whereas flavor attractants appear to have the greatest effect when applied both pre- and post-weaning.

The use of cortisone and the estimation of 11β-HSD type 2 activity in hair is recommended instead of using hair cortisol concentrations alone.

Results indicate that the pain-related behaviors in pigs from the UPAPS have different statistical weights.

Findings may explain numerically lower pregnancy and farrowing rates in sows mixed two days post-service.

The jute material and piglet nests positively impacted sow welfare and piglet measures but did not translate into improved piglet survival.

These findings highlight the complexities involved when forming social preferences and present a platform for further exploring the motivations for preferential associations among intensively farmed pigs.

Heritability estimates for all studied traits suggest they could be suitable as a method of phenotyping aggression and fear/boldness for genetic selection purposes.

Resilience to weaning stress was associated with behavioral differences in finishing gilts at mixing and when faced with novel situations.