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The success of pens which provide pigs with a bedded resting area and an area for feeding, elimination and other activities depends on pigs' ability to show discrimination in elimination behaviour and thereby keep the resting area dry and clean. The eliminative behaviour of 16 gilts was studied during the last day of gestation when motivation for prepartum nest-building was high. During gestation the gilts had been housed in stalls (n=8) or in pens (n=8). Before parturition the animals were moved to farrowing pens with a peat and straw bedded resting area and a solid floor activity area. The gilts urinated and defecated significantly more in the activity area than in the resting area (P<0.001). However, significantly more gilts which had previously been stalled defecated in the resting area than gilts which had never been confined (P<0.05). Thus, previous housing experience may influence patterns of elimination in pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeated deprivation of lying down was used as a model to study the effect of long-term stress on performance, meat quality and metabolic changes in young bulls. Sixteen Danish Friesians were included and assigned to either control treatment or deprivation of lying down from 07:00 to 14:00 and 15:00 to 22:00 every day for 10 weeks. Feed intake was recorded daily. Blood was taken weekly to study changes in hormone and metabolite concentrations. On days 5 and 55 of the treatment, the sensitivity of the pituitary to growth hormone-releasing factor was tested. Repeated deprivation of lying down did not affect voluntary feed intake or meat quality. Likewise, feed efficiency and daily intake did not differ statistically, but numerically the reduction was in accordance with the hypothesis that long-term stress depresses performance. Between-animal variation appears to be markedly increased for traits such as daily gain and feed conversion ratio, indicating individual adaptation to long-term stress. Stressed animals tended to have lower circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor-I but no effect was observed on the sensitivity of the pituitary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]