Dr. Harold Gonyou is the Research Scientist in Applied Ethology at the Prairie Swine Center in Saskatchewan, Canada. Recent research conducted at the Prairie Swine Center has demonstrated that improved handling of pigs during loading and transport can quite dramatically reduce stress in the pigs.
The researchers at the Prairie Swine Centre devised a specially designed 300 to 400 metre course. Groups of pigs were then handled in different ways as they were moved through the course.The pigs were then observed for signs of stress and the percentage of stressed pigs were then calculated. One group of pigs was moved in a slow and gentle manner. A second group of pigs was moved in a faster and more aggressive manner. A third group was moved in a faster and more aggressive manner with the use of electric prods.
Dr. Gonyou remarked that the observations were striking." It’s a huge difference. The gentle handling, we had only one pig out of 50 that showed any sign of stress during this handling. When we looked at the aggressive using the electric prod, we were getting 45 percent of the pigs showing strong stress reactions. Those that were not prodded but were moved quickly, handled aggressively with the exception of the prod, we were getting a level there of about 15 percent showing signs of stress.
Dr. Gonyou goes on to say that " I think that, when you’re looking at pigs going to market currently, we are looking at packing plants reporting somewhere between a quarter to one half of a percent of pigs arriving at the packing plant with stress problems from handling. I think that our feeling is that we should be able to cut those in half. Certainly there are truck loads that come in with five or ten percent of animals that are showing signs of stress. That can be traced back to the farm of origin and how they were handled there. These farms simply need to look at how they are handling pigs and find less stressful ways of doing it."
The majority of death losses due to stress are coming from a limited number of farms. Dr. Gonyou is confident that if those farms could improve their handling methods, those loses could be reduced. In transit losses represent a significant cost to the industry with respect to negative public perception with respect to animal care, death loss as well as the potential negative effects of stress on meat quality.
Source:
March 21, 2005, Farmscape.ca, Bruce Cochrane