Page 7 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Animal welfare cast in bronze by Pork CRC

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ANIMAL welfare was the focus of Pork CRC’s bronze sponsorship of ‘Animal Production 2018’, the 32nd biennial conference of the Aus- tralian Society of Ani- mal Production.
Held over three days in July at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, its theme was ‘Fos- tering innovation through the value chain’.
Pork CRC manager, Commercialisation and Research Impact, Charles Rikard-Bell, who at- tended and represented the Cooperative Research Centre for High Integrity Australian Pork, said the theme was a perfect fit, as Pork CRC’s four pro- grams were all about in- novation up and down the value chain.
This was particularly the case with Program 1, ‘Reduced confinement of sows and piglets’, which focused on developing in- novative sow and piglet management and housing systems that progressively relied on less confinement to optimise sow and piglet welfare, while maintain- ing production efficiency and profitability.
Pork CRC Subprogram 1C leader Prof Paul Hems- worth of the University of Melbourne delivered the Barnett Memorial Lecture at the first day’s final ses- sion ‘Consumer demands and welfare’, which was sponsored by Pork CRC.
The main conclusion from his lecture, titled ‘Key determinants of pig welfare: implications of animal management and housing design on live- stock welfare’, was that group housing provided welfare advantages in
most situations.
Prof Hemsworth said
it was clear from Pork CRC research that ap- propriate housing design, good management and stockmanship were three key drivers of successful group housing.
Design factors covered by his lecture involved re- search in areas of floor spacing, feeding systems, time of mixing, restrictive feeding and environmen- tal enrichment.
Prof Hemsworth ref- erenced the Pork CRC supported PhD research of Megan Verdon on the feeding behaviour of floor-fed group housed sows.
Dr Verdon had shown that dominant sows spent most time feeding under droppers, while subdomi- nant and submissive sows spent most time feeding in areas close to dominant sows, but with less feed availability and in areas of limited or no feed avail- ability, respectively.
All sows could get enough feed to maintain pregnancy and gain some weight, but in doing so they received more ag- gression than dominant sows.
Dominant and submis- sive sows exhibited sig- nificantly higher cortisol levels than subdominants, suggesting it might be more stressful protecting areas of high feed supply
and avoiding aggression altogether than adopting more opportunistic feed- ing behaviour.
These results had obvi- ous implications for the design of floor feeding systems.
Interestingly, group size had no effect on aggres- sion and stress levels.
Dr Rikard-Bell said while Pork CRC research established the major fac- tors affecting sow welfare at and after mixing, Pro- gram 1 also concentrated on enrichment for preg- nant sows and defining and improving welfare in
conventional systems at farrowing and lactation.
Addressing the confer- ence at the conclusion of the session, Dr Rikard- Bell explained that Aus- tralasian Pork Research Institute Ltd, the organi- sation that will build upon Pork CRC’s work following the completion of Pork CRC’s Common- wealth funding agreement on June 30, 2019, had completed its first call for 2018/19 and the APRIL Board had approved 14 R&D projects to com- mence in July.
“Animal welfare will continue to be an impor- tant area of research for APRIL as we assess the animal’s affective state and APRIL anticipates supporting future Animal Production Conferences and presenting research outcomes,” he said.
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Pork CRC manager, Commercialisation and Research Impact Charles Rikard-Bell.
Pork CRC Subprogram 1C leader Prof Paul Hemsworth of the University of Melbourne delivered the Barnett Memorial Lecture, ‘Key determinants of pig welfare: implications of animal management and housing design on livestock welfare.’ www.porknews.com.au
Australian Pork Newspaper, August 2018 – Page 7