Impact of Auto - Sort Systems on Pig Welfare

cal evidence of which we are aware is that this technology is by far more complex than simply installing an automated-sorting scale unit and a set of one-way gates in a hog house. This complexity is evidenced by what appears to be incomplete animal adaptation, various design flaws, and unintended and un expected consequences of these systems. These problems – among others – have been confirmed by observations both casual and controlled over the past 18 months by a research team at the University of Illinois working on a project funded by the Illinois Pork Producers Association and National Pork Board. An on-going research study was designed to evaluate the impact that current auto-sort floor layouts have on pig per formance and well-being and to further optimize auto-sort layouts based on pig behavior. Currently, experimental auto-sort layouts have been assembled at two separate hog units in Illinois in which we are examining the design and operation of specific components of auto-sort technology: the scale unit, its entries and exits; the one-way gates; the various layouts; location of important resources such as feeders and waterers in each of the various layouts now being employed; novel layout approaches; relative plan dimensions of different zones in respective layouts; and so on. Many thousands of observations and measurements of various kinds already have been made. Video-records and ear-tag-RFID weight and scale-use data from many hundreds of hours of observations of thousands of pigs have been captured. Packer and Pig Champ data have been collected as well. Through three replicates of 600 pigs per treatment group, careful observations and data analysis has confirmed that many flaws do indeed exist and benefits are there, but not yet optimized. Behavioral vices and patterns are significantly impacted by the various auto-sort floor layouts (food-court, water-pen, and fast-lane). These floor layouts difImpact of Auto-Sort Systems on Pig Welfare Janeen L. Salak-Johnson, Ph.D. Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign