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Abstract:

The European Directive 2001/93/EC states that every pig must have permanent access to a sufficient quantity of material to enable proper investigation and manipulation activities. This implies that also piglets in the farrowing crate should have access to suitable materials. Providing these materials can be considered as a form of environmental enrichment. Enrichment in the farrowing crate can be important to reduce aggression and frustration behaviour in piglets and to encourage play behaviour. The ethological question rises from what age enrichment must be introduced to be used by the piglets. It is possible that during the first days, the piglets explore the environment only to a limited extent and they will stay close to the sow. Later, the piglets focus their attention on the environment and pen mates too. To avoid harmful and frustration behaviour, enrichment could be important in this stage. In an attempt to determine the age on which enrichment can be introduced, 227 suckling piglets (116 males and 111 females from 22 sows) were observed in the farrowing crate until weaning. Behavioural observations were carried out using the scan sampling method. Data were analysed using the logistic mixed model. The results showed that social play behaviour increased with the age and the same result was seen with exploring the crate. Piglets already showed explorative behavior during the first week of life. Nosing and nibbling other piglets was also already seen during the first week of life. The frequency of nosing and nibbling the sow did not change with the age, except from a fluctuation in week 3. The results suggest that environmental enrichment can be introduced when piglets are one week old to offer the piglets opportunities to perform explorative and play behavior, without developing harmful behaviours.