Cognitive enrichment in piglet rearing : an approach to enhance animal welfare and to reduce aggressive behaviour
Articolo
Data di Pubblicazione:
2013
Citazione:
Cognitive enrichment in piglet rearing : an approach to enhance animal welfare and to reduce aggressive behaviour / L.T. Sonoda, M. Fels, S. Rauterberg, S. Viazzi, G. Ismayilova, M. Oczak, C. Bahr, M. Guarino, E. Vranken, D. Berckmans, J. Hartung. - In: ISRN VETERINARY SCIENCE. - ISSN 2090-4460. - 2013:(2013), pp. 389186.1-389186.9. [10.1155/2013/389186]
Abstract:
It is known that pigs raised in enriched environments express less aggressive behaviour. For this reason, a new method of cognitive
environmental enrichment was experimented at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany. In the first phase, 78
suckling piglets were trained to learn the link between a sound given by an electronic feeder and a feed reward in the form of
chocolate candies during a period of 8 days. In the second phase, the same piglets were used in resident-intruder tests to verify the
potential of the feeding system to interrupt aggressive behaviour. The analysis of all training rounds revealed that piglets learned
the commands during 8 days of training and the interest of the piglets increased within training days (P < 0.05). In the residentintruder
test, 79.5% of aggressive interactions were broken by feeder activation. In interactions where either the aggressor or the
receiver reacted, a high number of fights were stopped (96.7% versus 93.1%) indicating that it was not relevant if the aggressor or the
receiver responded to the feeder activation. We conclude that the electronic feeding systemhas the potential to be used as cognitive
enrichment for piglets, being suitable for reducing aggressive behaviour in resident-intruder situations.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Elenco autori:
L.T. Sonoda, M. Fels, S. Rauterberg, S. Viazzi, G. Ismayilova, M. Oczak, C. Bahr, M. Guarino, E. Vranken, D. Berckmans, J. Hartung
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