Kognitive Aufgaben als Umweltanreicherung im Abferkelstall : erste Ansätze einer Nutzung früher Verhaltenskonditionierung von Saugferkeln zur Verminderung aggressiver Verhaltensweisen während der Aufzucht

The aim of our study was to analyze a new method of cognitive enrichment for suckling piglets and related opportunities to reduce aggressive behaviour after weaning. In the first part of our experiment, 10 complete litters with a total of 95 suckling piglets were trained from an age of 25 days to react on an electronic feeder. The piglets learned the link between a sound given by the electronic feeder and a feed reward in form of chocolate candies. There were 8 training sessions during 10 days showing an apparent learning success at the third day with 74,3% of the piglets standing close to the feeder 15 seconds after its activation. The second part of experiment was aimed to study the possibility to interrupt aggressive behaviour between 2 piglets after weaning using the behaviour learned in the farrowing pen. Therefore, 390 resident-intruder confrontations were studied. In 83,6% of cases, aggressive interaction could be stopped by the activation of the feeder and the related reaction of the piglets. In 90% of cases, only one piglet reacted first so that fighting stopped. In 59% of all stopped fights, the aggressor reacted to the feeder activation whereas the receiver reacted in 51% alone or together with the aggressor. Thus, the feeder could effectively distract the animals from aggressive behaviour. We conclude that a sound signal combined with an electronic feeder is suitable as cognitive enrichment for suckling piglets as well as to stop aggressive fights in a resident-intruder test. Hence, cognitive enrichment can be used for pigs in young age and may be useful in later production stages to reduce aggression and enhance animal welfare.