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Novel Teagasc study finds providing pigs with a high enrichment allowance reduces water usage and wastage

For pigs kept in organic housing systems with access to concrete outdoor runs, showers may be increasingly important to alleviate heat stress. Additionally, they could reduce faecal soiling of pigs and increase the use of outdoor runs. Therefore, we conducted experiments on three commercial organic farms in Austria (AT) and Switzerland (CH), including 4-6 pens of growing-finishing pigs per farm (total of 428 pigs). In half of the pens, we installed showers (mist-like sprinklers, flow rate 1.0- 2.4 l/min) in the outdoor run, which were running 5-6 times per day for 30 minutes, followed by a 30- or 60-minutes break. On 2-3 days with temperature exceeding 22°C, we conducted behavioural observations in the outdoor run, inspected pigs for soiling and took pictures with a thermal imaging camera on group-level during and between shower activation (same schedule for control pens). We calculated skin surface temperature differences of the time before and during the shower. Data were analysed with linear mixed effect models with treatment as fixed effect. Results indicate a decreased proportion of pigs in outdoor runs with shower (48%) compared to control pens (61%, p=0.02). Pigs with a shower were lying less laterally (p=0.001), while lying in contact with pen mates was not affected by treatment (p=0.12). Pigs with access to a shower were not cleaner than pigs in control groups (p=0.15). The skin surface temperature of pigs with access to showers was reduced during shower activation by 1.3 and 2.2°C in AT and CH, respectively, while temperature did not differ in control groups. The effect was significant in CH (p=0.02) and a tendency in AT (p=0.08). We conclude, that installing showers in the outdoor run can improve pig welfare by reducing heat stress under practical conditions.

Pork is one of the most globally eaten meats and the pig production chain contributes significantly to the water footprint of livestock production. However, very little knowledge is available about the on-farm factors that influence freshwater use in the pig production chain. An experiment was conducted to quantify the effect of three different washing treatments on freshwater use, bacterial levels [(total bacterial counts; TBC), Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococcus] and cleaning time in washing of pens for weaning pigs. Three weaner rooms were selected with each room having 10 pens and a capacity to hold up to 14 pigs each. Pigs were weaned and kept in the pens for 7 weeks. Finally, the pens were cleaned before the next batch of pigs moved in. The washing treatments used were power washing and disinfection (WASH); presoaking followed by power washing and disinfection (SOAK), and presoaking followed by detergent, power washing and disinfection (SOAK + DETER). A water meter was used to collect water use data and swab samples were taken to determine the bacterial levels. The results showed that there was no overall effect of washing treatments on water use. However, there was an effect of treatment on the washing time (p<0.01) with SOAK and SOAK+DETER reducing the washing time per pen by 2.3 minutes (14%) and 4.2 minutes (27%) compared to WASH. Nonetheless, there was an effect of sampling time (before or after washing) (p<0.001) on the levels of TBC and Staphylococcus, but no effect was seen on Enterobacteriaceae levels. Thus, the washing treatments used in this study had no effect on the water use of the pork production chain. Although there was no difference in both water use and bacterial load, from a producer perspective, presoaking and detergent use can save time and labour costs, so this would be the preferred option.