Human-animal relationship influences husbandry practices, animal welfare and productivity in pig farming.

The nature of the relationship between humans and farm animals has multiple repercussions on the animals and the farmers and varies with farmers attitudes towards their animals. In particular, this relationship influences animal welfare and human working conditions. The present study, part of a larger research project investigating human-animal relationship (HAR) in pig farming and ways to improve it, had two objectives: 1) to investigate the HAR in a diversity of pig farming situations and to evaluate the possible correlation between farmer attitudes, pigs' reactions to humans, husbandry practices, animal health, welfare and productivity and 2) to find a way to rapidly assign a farmer to a profile, in order to better adapt course content during training sessions on HAR.

Effect of feed restriction on the performance and behaviour of pigs immunologically castrated with Improvac®.

For centuries, entire male pigs have been castrated to reduce the risk of boar taint. However, physical castration of pig is increasingly being questioned with regard to animal welfare considerations. Immunization against gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) provides an alternative to physical castration.

The welfare of growing pigs in five different production systems: assessment of feeding and housing.

Ninety-one farms were visited over a 2-year period to assess the welfare of growing pigs in five different production systems found either in France or in Spain using the Welfare Quality® protocol. This study focused on animal-based measures as indicators of 'good feeding' and 'good housing'. Multiple Generalized Linear Mixed Models were performed for each measure to evaluate the differences between production systems and to detect possible causal factors.

Urinary cortisol as an additional tool to assess the welfare of pregnant sows kept in two types of housing.

The use of urinary cortisol (UC) as an additional tool to evaluate sows welfare was assessed in two experiments. In a preliminary methodological experiment, the kinetics of cortisol excretion in urine was studied during an Adreno Cortico Trophic Hormone (ACTH) challenge test in 10 pregnant sows. In a second experiment, 96 primiparous sows of an experimental unit were assigned to two different housing systems: 48 animals were housed in individual pens (IP) and 48 animals in collective pens (CP) with 6 animals per pen.