Behavioral changes in neonatal swine after an 8-hour rest during prolonged transportation.

Long distance transportation of weaned piglets (Sus scrofa) is increasingly common in the Unit-ed States and may result in delayed eating, drinking, or normal social behaviors. A potential solution is a mid-journey rest (lairage). The objective of this study was to determine if a lairage altered behavior after a 16-h transport. Pigs that weighed approximately 18 kg each (n = 894) were housed in 16 pens with 8 pens per treat-ment. Lairaged pigs were transported for 8 h and given an 8-h rest with food and water, whereas control pigs were transported continuously for 16 h. The heaviest, the lightest, and 2 average-BW pigs relative to the aver-age weight of the pen were observed by video recording for 24 h immediately before and after transport, and dur-ing d 6 and 13 after transport. Postures (lying, sitting, and standing) were recorded using 10-min-interval scan sampling, and behavioral categories included inactivity, activities (eating, drinking, alert, manipulating pen, root-ing, and walking) and social interactions (aggression, belly nosing, playing, tail biting, and positive social behaviors). In both treatments, sitting occurred most before transport (P <0.01) than at other times, but did not differ between treatments. Standing increased (time effect; P < 0.01) for both treatments immediately after transport through d 6, but returned to pre-transport val-ues by d 13. In contrast, lying decreased (time effect; P < 0.01) after transport, but returned to above pre-transport values by d 13. Time effects were evident for activity (P < 0.01), pen manipulation (P = 0.05), rooting (P < 0.01), initiation of belly-nosing (Z5 = 0.01), and receiving belly-nosing (P = 0.03); however, initiation of aggression did not differ for day (P = 0.19) or treatment (P = 0.56). Lairaged pigs initiated more (P = 0.05) play than con-tinuously transported pigs, but no differences {P = 0.84) were seen in receipt of play behavior. Pigs that were to be transported for 16 h continuously walked less pre-transport, walked more post-transport (treatment x time interaction; P = 0.02), and drank less pre-transport, but drank more on all days post-transport compared with the lairage group (treatment x time interaction; P = 0.001). This study indicated that extended transport without lairage alters some swine behaviors relevant to produc-tion (water consumption) and demonstrated that a long-duration transport, regardless of the mid-journey lairage treatment, affects a number of behaviors up to 13 d after transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]