Promoting natural feeding behaviour to enhance health and welfare in commercial pig production

Despite the availability of creep feed, many piglets have not learned how to eat before weaning, leading to stress, reduced growth and an increased risk of post-weaning diarrhoea.

Given that feeding and foraging behaviours are innately rewarding, we aim to give suckling piglets the freedom of choosing different feeding activities (i.e., how and what to eat).

We hypothesise that providing varied diets in a more enticing way will give piglets the opportunity to express their full range of natural feeding/foraging behaviours and that this will stimulate earlier feed intake.

Additional predicted outcomes are reduced physiological demand on sows with large litters (enhancing their sustainability in the herd) as well as the piglets’ experiences with different feeds potentially improving their immunological and cognitive abilities (promoting resilience around weaning).

These health and welfare improvement would have beneficial effects on farm profitability and better meet public expectations around giving animals the possibilities to show natural behaviours.

Following the data gathering phase, we will discuss the feasibility of this approach with farmers, advisors and company innovators and perform preliminary economic calculations.

The ultimate aim is an evidence-based approach to provide farmers with more flexibility and autonomy in selecting different food types and methods of presenting them, as a way to increase their production efficiency and market competitiveness.