The Rural Voice, 2006-03, Page 21)8
;h
to
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a
to
e
a
h
d
it
n
e
r
simply entered the pens holding a pig
board and made one circuit around
the pen, spending between 20 and 40
seconds in the pen.
Dr. Widowski reported that
walking the peps has a significant
effect on the pigs behaviour at both
farms. Pigs in all the pens that were
walked showed a reduction in
"escape behaviour" over time but the
pigs in pens that were walked two or
three times a week were less inclined
to try to escape from the handler than
those walked just once a week. In the
pens where walking took place twice
or three times a week, the escape
behaviour was reduced significantly
in the final two weeks before the pigs
went to market.
At the packing plant, the pigs
were videotaped as plant workers
moved batches of each of the
treatment groups through a crowding
pen and into a chute. The frequency
of jamming at the entrance to the
chute and the time it took to empty
the crowd pen were recorded.
Researchers found that handling
treatment on the farm
significantly reduced the
frequency of problems of jamming.
Pigs from pens that had not been
walked took about twice as long to
move out of the crowd pen than those
from pens that had been walked, Dr.
Widowski said.
In another test of the individual
personality of the pigs, the team
found that "bold" pigs were more
likely to have meat quality problems
than "shy" pigs.
The study involved looking at the
behaviour of pigs in their home pens.
Researchers measured the time it
took for a pig to react to a person
entering its pen or the presence of
some new object. They also assessed
the pig's temperament by measuring
the time it took for a pig to exit the
pen if the gate was left open. If the
pig took a minute or less, it was
described as "bold" while those that
too longer were called "immediate"
and those that never left the pen at all
through the open gate, were termed
shy.
The pigs were marked and the
same pigs were followed through the
handling facilities at the packing
plant. The relationship between time
Continued on page 19
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