The Effects of Pen Size and Design, Bedding, Rooting Material and Ambient Factors on Pen and Pig Cleanliness and Air Quality in Fattening Pig Houses

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Farrowing Pens for Individually Loose-Housed Sows: Results on the Development of the SowComfort Farrowing Pen

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Digitale verktøy

Gjeldene rammeplanen for barnehagen er fra 2017 og har et eget metodekapittel hvor forventninger til barnehagens digitale praksis blir beskrevet. Her kan vi lese om hvordan personalet skal jobbe med digital praksis og digitale verktøy i det pedagogiske arbeidet, for å oppfylle resten av rammeplanens føringer, slik at det bidrar til et rikt og allsidig læringsmiljø for alle barn. I rammeplanen står det at personalet skal utøve digital dømmekraft, legge til rette for utforsking, lek og læring gjennom digitale uttrykksformer. Det legges opp til deltakelse fra voksne og at digitale verktøy skal brukes utforskende og skapende (Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2017, ss. 44-45). Barn som går i barnehage i dag, vokser opp i en teknologisk digital verden og har digitale verktøy tilgjengelig rundt seg både hjemme og i barnehagen. Før barna fyller 1 år har mange av barna ferdigheten til å sveipe på en telefonskjerm og barn i småskolen har smartklokker på hånda slik at de kan ringe hjem om de har behov for det. Tidene forandrer seg, og personalet i barnehagen må holde seg oppdatert på alle mulige områder. På bakgrunn av mine observasjoner av digital praksis i barnehager jeg har vært innom både som student og ansatt har jeg landet på følgende problemstilling: Hvordan påvirkes ansattes motivasjon for bruk av digitale verktøy gjennom aksjoner i barnehagen?publishedVersio

Straw vs. peat as nest-building material - The impact on farrowing duration and piglet mortality in loose-housed sows

Author's accepted version (postprint).This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Elsevier in Livestock Science on 20/05/2019.Available online: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871141318304396?via%3DihubacceptedVersio

Maternal investment, sibling competition, and offspring survival with increasing litter size and parity in pigs (Sus scrofa)

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of litter size and parity on sibling competition, piglet survival, and weight gain. It was predicted that competition for teats would increase with increasing litter size, resulting in a higher mortality due to maternal infanticide (i.e., crushing) and starvation, thus keeping the number of surviving piglets constant. We predicted negative effects on weight gain with increasing litter size. Based on maternal investment theory, we also predicted that piglet mortality would be higher for litters born late in a sow's life and thus that the number of surviving piglets would be higher in early litters. As predicted, piglet mortality increased with increasing litter size both due to an increased proportion of crushed piglets, where most of them failed in the teat competition, and due to starvation caused by increased sibling competition, resulting in a constant number of survivors. Piglet weight at day 1 and growth until weaning also declined with increasing litter size. Sows in parity four had higher piglet mortality due to starvation, but the number of surviving piglets was not affected by parity. In conclusion, piglet mortality caused by maternal crushing of piglets, many of which had no teat success, and starvation caused by sibling competition, increased with increasing litter size for most sow parities. The constant number of surviving piglets at the time of weaning suggests that 10 to 11 piglets could be close to the upper limit that the domestic sow is capable of taking care of

Can we improve maternal care in sows? Maternal behavioural traits important for piglet survival in loose-housed sow herds

Author's accepted version (post-print).This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Animal Science following peer review. The version of record Ocepek, M., Rosvold, E. M., Andersen-Ranberg, I. & Andersen, I. L. (2017). Can we improve maternal care in sows? Maternal behavioural traits important for piglet survival in loose-housed sow herds. Journal of Animal Science, 95(11), 4708-4717 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.2527/jas2017.1725.Available from 02/11/2018.acceptedVersio

DigiPig: First Developments of an Automated Monitoring System for Body, Head and Tail Detection in Intensive Pig Farming

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Nest-building behaviour and activity budgets of sows provided with different materials

Author's accepted version (post-print).Available from 09/12/2018.Domestic sows are still highly motivated to build a nest before farrowing. Many pig houses have slurry systems that do not allow use of long straw or other bulky materials that could block the drains, which provides an incentive to investigate the functionality of finer-grained materials for nest building. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of providing peat or straw on the overall amount of nest-building behaviour, number of different behavioural elements performed during nest building, and behavioural time budget of sows in the nesting period before farrowing. Fifty-four hybrid sows (Norwegian Landrace x Yorkshire) ranging in parity from 1 to 9 (mean ± S.E., 2.9 ± 2.0), of which 16 were gilts, were loose-housed in individual farrowing pens. From two days before expected farrowing until farrowing the sows received nest-building material, with refills if necessary: peat (4 kg, 2 kg refills, n = 18), straw (2 kg, 1 kg refills, n = 17), or served as controls (n = 16). Behaviour in the last 12 h before onset of farrowing was instantaneously scan sampled at 5-min intervals from video recordings of each sow. Sows provided with straw or peat engaged in nest-building behaviour in a higher proportion of scans compared to the sows in the control group (P < 0.001), and the sows in the straw group displayed the highest number of nest-building elements (P < 0.001). Sows in the straw group also lied more (P < 0.001) and performed less stereotypic behaviour (P < 0.001) than sows in the other two groups. Overall, total nest-building behaviour increased to a peak at 6–4 h before farrowing and declined in the final three hours (P < 0.001). The number of different nest-building elements followed the same pattern (P = 0.032). Sows of parity ≥4 (n = 16) exhibited more nest-building behaviour compared to gilts and sows of parity 2–3 (P < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that both straw and peat stimulated more nest building compared to the control condition. However, straw elicited more complex nest-building behaviour, increased lying time and reduced time spent on stereotypies in the 12 h before farrowing, suggesting that straw has a better function as nest-building material than peat.acceptedVersio

Search Behavior in Goat (Capra hircus) Kids From Mothers Kept at Different Animal Densities Throughout Pregnancy

Individual differences in cognitive performance are often reported but factors related to variation within species are rarely addressed. Goats (Capra hircus) have been subjects of many cognitive studies recently but without focus on individual variation. Among others, factors such as prenatal stress and sex of the individual have been proposed as possible explanations for individual variation in cognitive skills. We aimed to study whether prenatal environment, prenatal stress, litter size, sex, and birth weight influences search behavior skills of goat kids. Pregnant Norwegian dairy goats were exposed to different spatial allowance (namely 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 m2 per animal) within the commercially applied range during pregnancy and their serum cortisol levels were measured six times within this period. Twenty-six of the kids born entered a three-stage searching task with increasing difficulty when they were 6 weeks old. The tasks included finding a bucket of milk: while moving (stage 1), after moving and disappearing behind a curtain (stage 2), and moving behind a displacement device and the device moving behind a curtain while hiding the bucket (stage 3). We found that prenatal animal density had no effect on the search skills of the offspring, while kids with higher prenatal maternal cortisol levels performed better at the highest stage tested: finding an object after single invisible displacement. At this stage, singleton kids and males performed better than twins and females. Birth weight had no effect at this stage. The findings suggest that maternal cortisol in the observed range had a facilitating effect on cognitive development of goat kids