Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
insemination), farrowing supervision and routine practices applied to the piglets in the
litter (about one hour), and monitoring of feeding and health, transfer from one pen or
building to another (Roguet
et al.,
2011). However, when a stockperson is working with
a sow, the neighbouring sows may also be influenced by the stockperson's behaviour and
by the reaction of the sow he/she is working with. This time spent by stockpersons in
contact with reproductive sows and their piglets is of very high importance since it may
influence both performance and welfare of the animals (Hemsworth, 2003; Kirkden
et
al.,
2013; Rushen
et al.,
1999).
Human-pig interactions can be characterized as positive, neutral or negative from
the animal's perspective (Hemsworth, 2003; Rushen
et al.,
1999). Such classification
depends on the nature of the interaction and the way the animal perceives it. When
the interaction contains fear-provoking elements, such as large size, loud noise, shouts
or sudden movements of the stockperson or when it induces pain like during some
practices inherent to husbandry routines (for example injection or tail docking), it can
be considered as negative or aversive for the animals (Hemsworth, 2003; Rushen
et al.,
1999). Some of the human-pig interactions can be considered as neutral if they don't
contain these pain or fear provoking elements. Such examples would be cleaning and
monitoring the material or the animals. These tasks offer the opportunity to habituate the
pigs to the presence of people and hence to reduce their fearfulness. The human-animal
interactions are positive if they consist in pleasant elements like stroking, speaking softly,
or when the stockperson is associated with positive elements, such as distribution of food
(Boivin
et al.,
2003; Sommavilla
et al.,
2011). Finally, some tasks like transferring the
sows from one pen or building to another can be positive, neutral or negative depending
notably on the way animals are handled by stockpersons. This can be done gently (use
of soft voice, friendly slap etc.), neutrally, or roughly (use of shouts, electric prod, etc.).
In modern conventional piggeries, occasions for neutral and positive interactions are
less and less frequent due to the automation of feeding and other tasks as well as to
the extensive use of slatted floors that minimizes the cleaning tasks. Therefore, the
animals' direct experiences with stockpersons are biased increasingly towards negative
interactions. The consequences can be so much more pronounced that pigs seem to
generalize aversive experiences with one handler to all people (Hemsworth
et al.,
1994,
1996b). Moreover, it was observed that inconsistent handling with a minority of aversive
interactions among positive interactions was as effective at inducing fear from humans
as consistent aversive interactions (Hemsworth
et al.,
1987). Even though the aversive
handling was extreme (brief electric shocks with an electric prod), these data suggest
that occasional negative experiences can have a significant impact on the way that pigs
perceive people. In addition, the unpredictability may cause stress anticipation to human
presence (Boivin
et al.,
2003).
The aim of the present chapter is to review research on human-animal interactions
focussing on the reproductive sow. The influence of such interactions occurring
throughout the life of sows is taken into account and their consequences in terms of
behaviour, physiology and performance are evaluated. Lastly, the question of improving
the situation with a special emphasis on a better comprehension by stockpersons of the
signals that pigs emit to express their needs is addressed.
