The aim of the study was to investigate the skin, claw and nipple lesions of sows and their piglets while they were kept on two different flooring materials: concrete cement and concrete covered with polyurethane and graveled with sand (particles 0.5-1.2 mm)

Munksgaard, Lene

Norring, Marianna

Saloniemi, Hannu

Valros, Anna

English

Organic Eprints

                                       NORDIC ISAE 2006                Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Symposium of the                              International Society for Applied Ethology                                  18-19 January 2006                                   Espoo, Finland         SSES                                          Edited by FINNISH SOCIETY FOR                                Hannu T. Korhonen, Satu Raussi,                        APPLIED ETHOLOGY                                    Laura Hänninen & Matti Heikkilä                                                                                      CONTENTS    Nordic ISAE 2006 Programme…………………………………1  Abstracts of oral presentations…………………………………3  List of participants………………………………………….…21                                          Organising Committee      Satu Raussi, Anna Valros, Marianna Norring, Jaakko Mononen,    Teppo Rekilä, Laura Hänninen, Matti Heikkilä, Hannu T. Korhonen                           Finnish Society for Applied Ethology           Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Symposium of the International Society for Applied Ethology  Editors: Hannu T. Korhonen, Satu Raussi, Laura Hänninen & Matti Heikkilä Published by: Finnish Society for Applied Ethology     Sow and piglet skin, claw and nipple lesions on two concrete flooring materials during lactation period  Marianna Norring, Anna Valros, Lene Munksgaard and Hannu Saloniemi Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences, Research Centre for Animal Welfare, P.O. Box 57, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, Marianna.norring@helsinki.fi  Flooring can actually wound pigs especially during farrowing period. Nursing piglets and lactating sows are especially sensitive to the flooring material. During nursing, the piglets' knees are pressed against the floor as support for their vigorous nursing activity. This can cause bleeding wounds on the piglets' knees. Lactating sows often lose weight due lactation and easily get wounds on their shoulders owing to extensive lying. The aim of the study was to investigate the skin, claw and nipple lesions of sows and their piglets while they were kept on two different flooring materials: concrete cement and concrete covered with polyurethane and graveled with sand (particles 0.5 – 1.2 mm).  We evaluated a total of 24 lactations (13 vs. 11). The sows were Landrace and Landrace x Yorkshire of parities 1 or 2. The experiment took place in 4 concrete and 4 polyurethane covered pens where the sows were moved before parturition. The pens were standard farrowing pens with cages, partly slatted floors and nest boxes with heating lamps for the piglets.  Skin lesions on the sows were measured twice: when they entered the experiment around parturition time and at the time of weaning (approximately days 21-28). The severity of lesions was scored according to the following scale: 1 = skin affected but not wounded (redness or thickening), 2 = wounded or destroyed skin. The size of the lesions was measured in two directions with a ruler. In addition, nipple lesions were recorded. The piglet measurements were made in the middle of the lactation period (days 5-12 postpartum) and in the end (days 21-28). Piglet skin lesions were measured on the front knees and seplocks. Recordings of the number of injured or affected claw halves and damaged nipples were taken. Piglets were also weighted.  Only 7 of 230 piglets were healthy in terms of skin lesions. More wounded hoofs were found at the end of the experiment on sand coating than on concrete (3.8 vs. 11.0, Mann-Whitney test, P=0.004). This could be due higher roughness of sand graveled coating compared to concrete (average peak height 0.35 mm vs. 0.49 mm, Mann-Whitney test, P=0.03). Despite the different quality of flooring there was no difference in amount of skin or nipple lesions.  The number of piglets affected the proportion of nipple lesion on sows (F= 7.50, df =1, P=0.015, univariate analysis). The more piglets the sow had the more nipple lesions it developed. No correlation between daily weight gain and nipple wounding was found. The number of piglet lesions remained constant (average 32 lesions per litter) but the lesions healed considerably since the number of more severe lesions decreased (P< 0.001, t-test) from first observation to second and the number of less severe lesions (P< 0.001, t-test) increased from first observation to second. Lesions did not affect the daily weight gain. There was no difference in lesions between the materials except for the claw lesions. The skin lesions of piglets healed towards the end of lactation period.                                                                     20

Sow and piglet skin, claw and nipple lesions on two concrete flooring materials during lactation period

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