A Professor with the University of Melbourne says small changes in the way pigs are moved can dramatically impact productivity.
The Human-Animal Relationship: Pig Welfare, Productivity and Training Strategies was discussed last week as part of the 2017 Manitoba Swine Seminar.
Professor Grahame Coleman, a Professor in the Animal Welfare Science Centre at the University of Melbourne, estimates 20 percent of the variation in productivity on farm can be attributed to handling.
Professor Grahame Coleman-University of Melbourne:
One of the basic findings and it was somewhat surprising was that routine behaviors that stock people use to move their animals turn out to be aversive to the animal.
Things like slapping the animal, not being malicious or not using any kind of intent of cruelty but just slapping the animal, maybe moving it too fast, shouting, those kinds of things turn out to be aversive to the animal and increase the animal's stress levels.
Those increases in stress levels lead to a reduction in productivity.
The kind of handling we're talking about, as I said before, are not extreme behaviors.
Source : Farmscape