It is suggested that learned associations between rooting behaviour and acquisition of food caused the pigs to stop rooting when all the food rewards had been consumed. The fact that rooting was performed in the absence of nutritive feedback suggests that this behaviour is performed independently of...
Location and activity of the pigs The results of these studies are shown in Table 2. For the behaviour “lying outdoors”, there was a Discussion This study evaluated and compared different designs of outdoor area in organic pig production. It is desirable to encourage the pigs to excrete on...
A fellow faculty member accused him of “serious research misconduct: either outright fraud by people in the lab, or such monumental sloppiness that data are entirely disconnected from context.” Among other things, Wansink had used cherry-picked data and multiple statistical analyses to get results...
In this experiment we investigated the effects of different types of rooting materials and a weekly rotation in different materials on behaviour and welfare of finishing pigs. We predicted that access to rooting material would lead to more positive and less negative behaviours, and a lower ...
Their rooting foraging behaviour poses a serious threat to biodiversity as the resulting soil disturbance alters ecosystem structure and function. Understanding what characteristics are important in selecting rooting locations can be used to predict the impact of pigs on ecosystems. We investigated patch ...
In this study, the effect of an interactive straw-filled rooting tower was tested under field conditions with respect to the prevalence of tail lesions and behaviour. Although tail biting could not be prevented in pigs with intact tails, tail lesions were less frequent and less severe ...
BehaviourCompetitionExplorationRooting materialPigsSeventy-two pigs, housed in groups of four, were allocated to either (1) ad libitum feeding with access to wood chip, (2) restrictive feeding with access to wood chip or (3) restrictive feeding without access to wood chip. The effects of ...
yards compared with the same area in the reference treatment.It was concluded that use of a rooting yard in the outdoor area in organic pig production allows the excretory behaviour of the pigs to be steered in the desired direction, improving hygiene and the appearance of the outdoor area....
BehaviourPerformanceHygieneAmmonia emissionIn organic pig production, pigs are often provided with concrete areas outdoors. These outdoor areas are frequently used for urination and defecation by the pigs, which results in high nitrogen emissions. This is inconsistent with the goal of organic farming ...
There was no difference between treatments in rooting behaviour. In addition, the overall use of the outdoor run did not differ between treatments. Time of day influenced all recorded behaviours in the rooting area (p < 0.001). With increasing temperature, more pigs were present in the out...