Authors: Alvin Alvarado, Bernardo Predicala
Identifier: CSBE19165
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Published in: CSBE-SCGAB Technical Conferences » AGM Vancouver 2019

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Description: Emerging technologies have provided new opportunities to collect information on live pigs. This study explored the use of infrared thermography (IR) and individual water consumption (IWC) systems to provide objective indicators of pig performance and welfare when subjected to stress due to routine husbandry practices. The two novel technologies (IR and IWC) were installed in a grow-finish room at the Prairie Swine Centre barn facility in Saskatoon, SK. The room had 6 pens with 14 pigs per pen during each trial. Two types of stressors were introduced to selected pigs to assess whether the two novel technologies were capable of detecting stressed pigs: (1) moving of pigs to the barn hallway and herding them through a pre-defined route for 10 minutes, and (2) mixing of unfamiliar group of pigs to each pen. Individual water consumption and pigs? body temperature through infrared thermography as well as growth performance and room temperature were monitored throughout each trial. As captured by the IR system, aggression as a result of mixing unfamiliar pigs to the pen, and moving to the hallway and bringing back to the pen caused an increase in the recorded body temperature of pigs. The system also showed that the pigs? body temperature was affected by changes in room temperatures. Using the IWC system, it was observed that grower pigs tend to consume more water when stressed. The installation of the IWC and IR systems, and inducing stress due to moving and mixing had no considerable negative impact on pig production performance.

Keywords: infrared thermography, water consumption, novel technologies, welfare, pig performance
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Date: 2019-07-15
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Conference name: CSBE/SCGAB 2019 Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC, 14-17 July 2019.
Session name: Electronics and instrumentation 1

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Type: Presentation
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Publication type: Text.Abstract
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Coverage: Canada
Language 1: en
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Rights: Canadian Society for Bioengineering
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