Eva Gallmann

Water intake and drinking behavior of pregnant sows

Especially in growing stocks, detection of upcoming health problems in individuals when housing pregnant sows in groups is difficult. Madsen and Kristensen (2005) already demonstrated that drinking pattern could be used to detect upcoming health problems with an online-monitoring system. Therefore, the aim of this collaborative research project is to use water intake but also feed intake and animal activity as indicators for monitoring health and behavior of pregnant sows. Animal welfare should be improved by developing, implementing and evaluating an on-line monitoring system using the mentioned indicators. To gain better knowledge about influencing parameters such as drinker types and diversity of individual drinking behavior a preliminary experiment was carried out. Hence within three weeks three different drinker types were tested in a dynamic herd of 50 group housed sows. Water consumption was measured and drinking behavior was observed by a video camera. Daily pattern of drinking events seemed to show a biphasic rhythm, but levels of water flow were different. Sows showed not just different drinking behavior but also volume flow per drinking event differed considerably. Drinker types seemed to have an influence on both water spillage and drinking behavior. The results of this experiment indicate that further research is needed concerning other influences on sows` water intake such as temperature, group structure and management. Nevertheless validation of water intake as an indicator made progress. Hereafter interactions of the three indicators need to be explored and the online-monitoring system needs to be developed, implemented and evaluated.

Ethological evaluation of an alternative housing system for fattening pigs.

The intention of the research project is to evaluate two housing systems for fattening pigs regarding animal welfare. The project is carried out under field conditions in a special experimental swine house for at least 100 fattening pigs. The swine house is composed of two separate compartments. The first compartment is characterized as a common housing system for fatteners with fully slatted floor and forced ventilation. The second compartment is designed as an alternative housing system with partly slatted floor, separate climatic areas with an insulated, covered lying area (kennels) and natural ventilation. Under summer conditions the natural ventilation can be supported by mechanical ventilation if necessary. The alternative system is adapted to the ethological needs of the swines. The pens are structured to ensure marked functional areas. Both housing systems are equipped with a sensor controlled liquid feeding system and ethologically enriched with occupation techniques. During four fattening periods (two each under summer and winter conditions) animal behavior, animal activity, health and growth performance of the pigs as well as indoor climate (temperature, humidity, gas and dust concentrations) and the surrounding conditions are registered. The animal behavior is observed with 14 parallel running video cameras as well as automatically working activity sensors.

Monitoring trough visits of growing-finishing pigs with UHF-RFID

Abstract Automatic monitoring of animal feeding behaviour in commercial farms is desirable as it is an important indicator for the well-being and health of animals. Low-frequency and high-frequency radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have been tested for the detection of feeding visits of growing-finishing pigs, but the suitability of ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID for this application has not yet been shown. Therefore, the objective of this study was the validation of a UHF-RFID system, consisting of a reader, antennas and passive transponder ear tags, for the monitoring of visits of growing-finishing pigs at a short trough for liquid feeding. Consequently, (1) two antenna variants (free-form and patch antennas) were tested at different levels of antenna output power, (2) two methods to determine a bout criterion for the creation of trough visits from the RFID registrations were compared, and (3) a comparison of the RFID data with reference data from video observation was carried out. The analysis showed that the reading area exceeded the trough especially in the variants with high output power. Thus, the evaluation of the first and second rate of change of the total daily number and total daily duration of visits led to higher values for the bout criterion (50 s for both antenna variants) than the evaluation of the mean absolute deviation between video and RFID data (20 s for the free-form antenna and 30 s for the patch antennas). The trough visits observed were detected best with the patch antennas at 25 dBm output power and a bout criterion of 30 s with regard to average precision (61.1%), and correlation between the video data and RFID visits (R 2  = 0.87 for total number and 0.80 for total duration of visits). The average sensitivity of this variant was 49.7%, specificity 99.0% and accuracy 97.9%. The highest average sensitivity (79.7%) and a good correlation between video data and RFID visits (R 2  = 0.78 for total number, 0.56 for total duration of visits with a bout criterion of 50 s) were measured with the free-form antenna at 26 dBm. In conclusion, UHF-RFID can be suitable for the monitoring of trough visits of growing-finishing pigs, but the effect of ear tissue on the performance of the UHF-RFID ear tags should be reduced by further development. In addition, further research should be carried out to evaluate the potential of this technology completely for animal behaviour monitoring.

Comparison of different air supply and cooling systems in pig fattening houses.

There is need for research regarding the optimization of air supply and of air cooling systems of livestock houses for fattening pigs. A decision support project for the German Ministry of Agriculture has been established to investigate such technologies on a research farm and under practical conditions. Since January 2011, on the research farm Landesanstalt fur Schweinezucht (LSZ Boxberg) measurements on three air supply and cooling systems have been carried out: Underfloor air inlet and supply, cooling pad and high pressure evaporative indoor air cooling. The present results show differences concerning the parameters: temperature, differential pressure, air velocity and energy consumption .

Untersuchungen zur automatischen Milchfütterung von Saugferkeln

Der biologisch-technische Fortschritt in der Ferkelerzeugung hat dazu gefuhrt, dass zunehmend Wurfgrosen mit mehr als 14 Ferkeln pro Sau auftreten. Dies geht meist mit geringeren Geburtsgewichten der Ferkel einher. Zudem reicht die Zitzenzahl und Milchleistung der Sau nicht immer aus, um den gesamten Wurf angemessen zu versorgen. Neben einem gezielten Wurfausgleich oder dem Einsatz von technischen Ammen – welche jedoch eine Trennung von der Muttersau erfordern – ist die Milchbeifutterung in der Abferkelbucht eine Option. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wurde das Trinkverhalten der Ferkel an einer automatischen Milchbeifutterung untersucht und die Gesundheits- und Leistungsmerkmale der Sauen und Ferkel aus den Versuchs- und Kontrollgruppen miteinander verglichen. Die Milchbeifutterung zeigte einen positiven Effekt auf die Entwicklung der Ferkel. Informationen uber die Tieraktivitat und die Nutzung der Milchbeifutterung konnten mittels Verhaltensbeobachtungen gewonnen werden.

Rückverfolgbarkeit in der Schweinehaltung

Der Einsatz von Software und elektronischen Komponenten zur Prozesssteuerung und zum Management in der Schweinhaltung ist Stand der Technik. Die Verwendung dieser elektronischen Hilfsmittel ermoglicht in Zukunft eine effizientere Dokumentation und damit eine einfachere und zeitnahe Ruckverfolgung von Tieren oder Lebensmitteln. Bei der Vernetzung von Hard und Software in der Schweinehaltung gibt es noch erheblichen Entwicklungsbedarf. Eine Vereinheitlichung von Kommunikationsstandards wird vorangetrieben. An der flachendeckenden Dokumentation und der barrierenfreien Ruckverfolgbarkeit auf elektronischem Wege muss weiter geforscht werden, um einfache und transparente Systeme zu schaffen.

Umweltgerechte Mastschweinehaltung III

For the comparison of emission rates based on mean daily data, an average of 60 % of the daily measurements were taken into account. There were distinct differences between the fully slatted house system with forced ventilation (VSP) and the free ventilation system kennel housing (GK) with separate climate areas, regarding temperature ranges, relative humidity and volume flows. The factor of the daily mean data for NH3 , CO2 and CH4 emission rates was about 1.5 lower for the GK system than for the VSP on all days recorded.