Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The Swedish agenda 2030 promotes a more sustainable agriculture (Nilsson 2017). In that
frame, agricultural research about animal behaviour, health and welfare is critical for reaching
the evocated goals. In pig farming, one of the main health and welfare concerns occurs before
and after piglets’ weaning (Kim et al. 2024; Wallgren et al. 2019; Westin 2004; Huting et al.
2021). This research aims to evaluate the effects of feed choice on health, weight gain,
damaging behaviours and the incidence of diarrhoea before and after weaning. For this, an
applied experiment has been performed at Funbo Lövsta farm, the experimental farm of the
Swedish University of Agricultural sciences. Three groups of piglets were set: a choice group
accessing five different feeds in five different playful feeders in an extra pen, a no-choice group
accessing their usual creed-feed in a usual feeder in an extra-pen, and a control group raised
according to conventional Swedish practices. Piglets from the choice and no-choice treatments
could work for 2 minutes access to the extra-pens by pushing a weighed door. This was set
progressively heavier with each experimental session day according to a fixed ratio (Kagel et
al. 1995). They were driven back in their pen between these two-minutes exposition for refilling
the feeders, and this was repeated 20 times. As soon as this task was done, piglets were exposed
again to the treatment. 153 piglets from fifteen litters were included in this study, five litters per
treatment groups. Data was collected manually, then stored on Microsoft Excel (2016) files.
The statistical analyses were performed on Rstudio 4.4.2 (2024). Concerning damaging
behaviour, certain kinds of skin lesions appear significantly less often within the choice and no�choice treatments compared to the control group. The hypothesis was: “The freedom of choice
will promote growth and health during the weaning period, while reducing damaging
behaviours”. In the results, damaging behaviour is the only point showing significative
improvements with the treatment groups. For weights, the control group was the heaviest at
weaning and at seven weeks old. Results do not allow to support the hypothesis. There could
be more piglets included in this research because the experiment was not completed by the time
of writing this thesis. Maybe including this last animal batch in the statistical sample could
improve the significance of some results and making more stated conclusions.