Influence of housing and social changes on growth, behaviour and cortisol in piglets at weaning

Validation of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay developed for measuring cortisol concentration in human saliva and serum for its applicability to analyze cortisol in pig saliva

“…Cortisol can be measured in plasma or serum [1,2]. However, blood sampling requires either restraint of the pig during sampling, thus being exposed to stress, or surgical insertion of a catheter, which is difficult in large-scale studies or studies conducted in less controlled housing environments [3].…”

“…There are several methods for analyzing cortisol in saliva [1,2,14,15], the majority of which being immunoassays. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) are widely used in laboratories today.…”

Maternal Fish Oil Supplementation Affects the Social Behavior, Brain Fatty Acid Profile, and Sickness Response of Piglets

“…Compared with the piglets from HOSF-fed sows, those from FO-fed sows displayed more social activities during the first 3 h after weaning and played more and tended to display less oral manipulative behaviors directed at pen mates during the 4 first wk postweaning. Whereas positive social interactions and play behavior are indicators of good welfare in piglets (43), oral manipulation of pen mates is thought to represent redirected suckling and explorative behavior (44,45) and reflect stress and poor welfare (46). Measures that reduce weaning stress in pigs, such as environmental and/or social enrichment, typically result in lower amounts of manipulative behavior (46,47) and higher amounts of play behavior (48).…”

Facilitating ‘learning from mom how to eat like a pig’ to improve welfare of piglets around weaning

“…These behaviours are not only indicators of high stress levels of the animal that performs the behaviour but can also compromise the welfare of the animal on which the behaviour is performed (Dybkjaer, 1992;Dudink et al, 2006). Mixing of piglets and the move to a new environment both have major impacts on welfare in an additive way (Merlot et al, 2004;Hötzel et al, 2011;Colson et al, 2012).…”