Pigs Welfare in Practice PDF is A concise practical handbook on high welfare standards in pig farming for people who work directly with animals. The aim is to improve animal health and farm profitability through introducing good husbandry practices and finding low cost solutions to improve welfare for the animals.
Aimed at farmers, stockmen, food industry personnel and agricultural students, the book explains why welfare is important for the animal and the farm, what good welfare looks like, how to measure welfare in practice using assessment tools, and practical advice for improving welfare for pigs.
Table of Contents
List of contributors
Foreword
Introduction
About this book
How to Use this book
1 Understanding pig welfare
1.1 Good welfare, more than just being healthy
1.2 A global understanding of animal welfare
1.2.1 Europe
1.2.2 North America and Canada
1.2.3 Asia
1.2.4 Latin America
1.2.5 Australia
1.2.6 Africa
2 Making the business case for animal welfare
2.1 The profts of improving pig welfare
2.2 Animal welfare, society and economics
2.3 The costs of tail damage
2.4 Cost–beneft analysis: gilt rearing
2.5 Economic evaluation of farrowing systems
2.6 Make your own cost–beneft analysis
3 Assessing animal welfare
3.1 Iceberg indicators
3.1.1 Stereotypies
3.1.2 Tail posture
3.1.3 Fearfulness
3.1.4 Vocalizations
3.1.5 Tear staining
3.1.6 Skin lesions at slaughter
3.2 Welfare assessment methods
3.3 Qualitative behaviour assessment
3.4 Precision farming for automatic detection of welfare risks
3.5 Animal welfare apps
3.6 Know the welfare of your pigs
4 What you can do to improve animal welfare?
4.1 Improving human–animal interactions
4.2 Appropriate enrichment
4.3 Piglet welfare
4.3.1 Large litters and pre-weaning mortality
4.3.2 Management procedures
4.3.3 Euthanasia
4.4 Welfare from weaning to fattening
4.4.1 Weaning
4.4.2 Tail biting
4.4.3 Aggression
4.5 Welfare of boars
4.6 Welfare of lactating sows
4.6.1 Nest building
4.6.2 Farrowing
4.6.3 Farrowing pain
4.6.4 Shoulder ulcers and udder lesions
4.7 Welfare of gestating sows
4.7.1 Pre-natal stress
4.7.2 Aggression between sows 137
4.7.3 Hunger
4.7.4 Lameness
4.8 Welfare of cull sows
4.9 Rearing gilts for a better future herd
4.10 Make a stepwise action plan for improving welfare
Appendices Appendix 1: Welfare Quality® form for sows and piglets Appendix 2: Welfare Quality® form for growing pigs Appendix 3: Scoring list for pig qualitative behaviour assessment Appendix 4: Checklists for suitability of enrichment objects Appendix 5: Calculation guide for the amount of enrichment
