One Is the Coldest Number: How Group Size and Body Weight Affect Thermal Preference in Weaned Pigs (3 to 15 kg).

ABSTRACT: Housing pigs within their thermal comfort zone positively impacts productivity and performance. However, fundamental information on behavioral thermoregulatory responses of individual and group-housed pigs is meager. As a gregarious species, pigs prefer to be near one another, touching and often huddling. As pigs huddle together, they decrease their heat loss to the environment by decreasing exposed surface area and increasing mass. Additionally, pigs gain weight rapidly as they age. As an individual grows, their ability to withstand lower temperatures increases. We hypothesized that group size would alter pig thermal preference and that thermal preference would change based upon body weight. Thirty-six groups of pigs (n = 2 pigs/group) were tested in a factorial design based on group size

SUBMITTER: Robbins LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8157870 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature