Publications by authors named "S A Guzman-Pino"
Article Synopsis
- Environmental enrichment, consisting of physical structures and social interactions, significantly enhances broiler welfare in intensive farming settings.
- The study analyzed different behaviors, health indicators, and growth metrics over 43 days, revealing that social interactions led to increased feeding time, drinking, and foraging behaviors, while also suggesting better overall affective states in the broilers.
- Despite variations in specific behaviors, both physical and social treatments showed no negative impact on growth performance, highlighting a practical method to improve broiler quality of life without sacrificing productivity.
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.
Due to substantial differences between studies, the understanding of avian taste perception remains incomplete. Also, studies on chicken taste preferences have mainly focused on measuring consumption differences, neglecting consumption behaviour patterns. This study investigated how age, the compound delivery matrix, and the number of birds per pen affect broiler chicken preferences and consumption behaviour, and established their preference values for four taste compounds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis work aimed to evaluate the gene expression of amino acids (AA) and fatty acids (FA) sensors in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of chickens at two different ages (7 and 26 days post-hatch). Sixteen broilers (Ross 308) were selected, and ten sections of the GIT, including upper (tongue base, upper palate, crop, proventriculus), middle (gizzard, duodenum, jejunum, ileum), and lower GIT section (cecum, colon) were collected for analysis. Relative gene expression of AA (T1R1, T1R3, mGluR1, mGluR4, CaSR, GPR139, GPRC6A, GPR92) and FA (FFAR2, FFAR3, FFAR4) sensors were assessed using qPCR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPigs display an innate preference for sweet taste compounds such as sucrose. However, the influence of sucrose supplementation into maternal diets has not been examined in pigs. We tested the hypothesis that sucrose inclusion into sows’ diets would modify the feeding behavior of post-weaning pigs for sweet and umami solutions.
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