SYMPOSIA AND ORAL PRESENTATIONS Animal Behavior and Well-Being: Sow Housing, Management, and Stress

As government mandates and public perceptions encourage the adoption of group housing, appropriate management strategies must be evaluated to determine their effect on sow well being and performance. To evaluate the effects of floor space allowance (FSA) and dietary fiber, a 10 mo study was conducted involving 6 trials (n = 40 sows/trial). Pregnant, mixed parity sows were housed 10 per pen with either 2.32m2 (B) or 1.67m2 (S) of FSA per sow. Sows were floor fed either a traditional cornsoy based control (C) or higher fiber diet (F). Sows were evaluated for BCS, BW and 10th rib backfat (BF) at d34 (start of trial), d65, and d90 of gestation. Sows were weighed and BCS at d110 of gestation (end of trial), and were scored for lesions at d34 of gestation (before mixing sows), every 2nd day for 2 weeks, and at d65, d76, d90, d110 of gestation to assess skin injury. Farrowing data were collected for each litter, including total birth and weaning weight, piglet mortality, number of pigs born, born alive, born dead and weaned. Data were analyzed by GLM procedures or mixed models, using repeated measures analysis when appropriate to measure effects across gestation days (GD). Sows were assigned to 1 of 3 parity groups (PG) for gilts entering parity 1 (G), sows entering parities 2–3 (M), and sows entering parity 4 or higher (H), respectively. There were significant PG by diet interactions for BCS change, weight gain, and ADG. Gilts lost more BF over gestation compared with other PG (P < 0.05). Sows in B pens tended to have higher ADG/period than those in S pens (P = 0.09). The HF sows had higher ADG/period than the other diet by PG classifications (P < 0.05). The FSA by GD interaction was significant, with S sows accruing lesions of higher severity compared with B sows at d36 (P = 0.002) and d76 of gestation (P = 0.07). Litter birth weight, and litter live birth weight were greater for higher parity sows (P < 0.05).These results indicate that a diet high in fiber can be fed to sows without detrimentally impacting performance, and that FSA may affect lesion severity.