The effect of social isolation, gender and familiarity with the experimental procedure on tests of porcine nociceptive thresholds.

Objective: To investigate the effects of habituation and isolation on mechanical nociceptive thresholds in pigs at the pelvic limbs and at the tail.

Study Design: Prospective randomized multifactorial study.

Animals: Thirty-two healthy castrated male (experiment 1), and 12 castrated male and 12 female (experiment 2) Danish Landrace×Yorkshire pigs, weighing 63.