Poster award for PhD student from IHA

Janne Brodin (English translation Ane Skjelfjord)

A catchy title, a high academic standard, an innovative research idea and good design – this is why PhD student Guro Vasdal won the poster award at this year’s ISAE conference on applied ethology.

Guro Vasdal

ISAE (International Society of Applied Ethology) had its 44th conference in Uppsala, Sweden, on August 4 – 7 2010, with about 400 participants, 133 posters and 75 presentations.

This international conference draws scientists from all over the world, all of whom have applied ethology (behavioral research) as their field of expertise.

In the review of the poster with the catchy title “Use of the creep area by newborn piglets – a battle against biology?” it is said that: “had the highest scientific quality, the most attractive layout and presented a novel idea which has contributed to the knowledge on applied animal behavior”.

Poster Photo: Guro Vasdal

“Piglet Corner” – the creep area
The poster, which is a result of one of the experiments in Vasdal’s doctoral work, deals with physical factors of the farrowing pen and more specifically the creep area. Based on an earlier preference experiment where the piglets showed a preference for high temperatures and a thick layer of sawdust, three different creep areas were created in this experiment. A total of 46 farrowing pens offered one of three options: either 1) Control, 2) A thick layer of sawdust or 3) A thick layer of sawdust and higher temperature.

No difference
Somewhat surprisingly, it turned out that there was no difference between the treatments as concerns the amount of time the piglet spent in the creep area. In addition to that, there was no relationship between the time the piglet spent in the creep area and mortality.

Documented for the first time
“It has been an unconfirmed ‘truth’ that if you can just get the piglet into the creep area early on after birth, much of the mortality problem will be solved – but it turns out that this is not the case”, says Vasdal. “Even those litters that spent more than 70% of their time in the creep area during the days after birth had the same piglet mortality as those that spent no time at all in the creep area. One explanation for this may be that many of the crushings happen while the sow is nursing, at which time the piglet must be close to her anyway.

Improved animal welfare
Fixation or tying the sow up is no longer legal in Norway: the sow is to wander freely around the pen with the piglets.

“Several countries are considering introducing free-stall housing, which is part of the motivation for this project. The goal is to find out how a farming system with free-stall pens can compete with a system with fixated sows as far as piglet mortality goes. Free-stall housing also requires more space, so there must be other areas where free-stall systems can compete.”

“The answer lies in improved animal welfare, which is becoming important to more and more people, politicians as well as consumers. Simply the fact that sows are allowed to wander free instead of being fixated is a step in the right direction,” Vasdal concludes.

Vasdal defends her thesis on December 10th 2010. She has already published five articles on the physical environment for the piglets and how this affects the sow and her little ones.

Published: 16.09.10
Updated: 17.09.10
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