Impact of Routine Management Procedures on the Welfare of Suckling Piglets

Abstract

Piglets often undergo several painful treatments during the initial days of their lives. In this review, we investigate the acute (i.e., immediate), short-, and long-term implications of piglet processing on behavioral, physiological, clinical, and performance parameters, and how welfare impairments depend on performance instead of sham procedure, alternative techniques, or the age of the piglets. Welfare indicators that have been used to determine the least distressing procedures and knowledge gaps with regard to the procedures are identified and discussed. Tail docking and especially piglet castration have been the most researched topics, whereas marking for identification has been rarely addressed. Few or no studies have investigated the effects of teeth resection and tail docking on piglets of different age groups. Additionally, results are often found to be inconsistent, highlighting the need for additional research to determine the optimal age for processing. Studies comparing different processing techniques have produced contradictory results, but ear notching, teeth clipping, hot cautery tail docking, and tearing during castration have been determined to result in increased pain. Generally, a shorter procedure duration can reduce stress, with operator training having a distinct impact on piglet welfare during processing. As such, these topics should be further investigated.

Welfare of pigs on farm

“…Castration is frequently performed by cutting the spermatic cords (Fredriksen et al, 2009) which can be performed using either a scalpel, an emasculator or scissors (Schmid et al 2022). While previous studies have observed no differences between tearing or cutting on the level of vocalisation (Tylor and Weary, 2000;Marchant-Forde et al, 2009), a recent study (Schmid et al, 2021) reported significant differences between cutting and tearing, indicating severe pain (measured in terms of vocalisation and body movement during the procedure) and increased tissue damage in piglets castrated with tearing.…”

Recognizing Post-Castration Pain in Piglets: A Survey of Swine Industry Stakeholders and the General Public

“…The developers of the PGS also theorized that exposure to livestock (animal experience) contributed to differences in scores (Viscardi and Turner, 2018), and this is supported by the difference in scores between public and industry respondents in the current study. While this suggests PGS may not be fully comparable between raters with different experience levels, the strong internal consistency means it can still be reliably used for training veterinary or industry professionals and sensitizing professionals and the public to pain in swine, helping to dispel persistent misconceptions (Steagall et al, 2021) and providing a rapid, simple and unobtrusive evaluation tool that can be more easily applied than behavioral or biomarker scales (Leach et al, 2012;Vitali et al, 2020;Schmid and Steinhoff-Wagner, 2022).…”