Publications by authors named "Rocio Palomo"
Article Synopsis
- The study highlights the importance of the human-animal relationship in determining pig welfare, showing that gentle handling improves pigs' comfort while rough handling induces fear and stress.
- Pigs were exposed to different handling styles (positive, minimal, and negative) over six weeks, and their behaviors and heart rate responses were measured in various scenarios.
- Results indicated that negatively handled pigs showed increased fear and stress, while positively handled pigs exhibited more positive behaviors and better heart rate metrics, suggesting a stronger welfare state linked to positive human interactions.
In this study, we addressed the social attentiveness, as well as the phenomenon of social facilitation and inhibition in the context of a positive human-pig relationship. Specifically, we investigated whether the social rank of an experienced pig (termed "demonstrator") has an effect on the attentiveness of the remaining pen mates (N = 40) when they observe the demonstrator being gently handled by a stockperson from behind an acrylic panel. We found that pigs preferentially attended to dominant demonstrators rather than subordinate demonstrators during their gentle handling sessions with the stockperson.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFarm animals can perceive humans positively by observing another animal being positively handled. This study evaluated whether pigs acquire a positive perception of humans after observing either a high or low socially ranked conspecific receiving gentle handling. Seventy-five 21-week-old pigs were housed in 15 nursery pens (five pigs/pen) and randomly assigned to one of three pen treatments: Dominant Demonstrator Group (DDG), Subordinate Demonstrator Group (SDG) and Control Group (CG).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF