• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.1.1-1.11
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• 2015

Background: Due to increased interest in animal welfare, there is now a need for a comprehensive assessment protocol to be used in intensive pig farming systems. There are two current welfare assessment protocols for pigs: Welfare Quality$^{(R)}$ Assessment Protocols (applicable in the Europe Union), that mostly focuses on animal-based measures, and the Swine Welfare Assurance Program (applicable in the United States), that mostly focuses on management- and environment-based measures. In certain cases, however, animal-based measures might not be adequate for properly assessing pig welfare status. Similarly, welfare assessment that relies only on environment- and management-based measures might not represent the actual welfare status of pigs. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to develop a new welfare protocol by integrating animal-, environment-, and management-based measures. The background for selection of certain welfare criteria and modification of the scoring systems from existing welfare assessment protocols are described. Methods: The developed pig welfare assessment protocol consists of 17 criteria that are related to four main principles of welfare (good feeding, good housing, good health, and appropriate behavior). Good feeding, good housing, and good health were assessed using a 3-point scale: 0 (good welfare), 1 (moderate welfare), and 2 (poor welfare). In certain cases, only a 2-point scale was used: 0 (certain condition is present) or 2 (certain condition is absent). Appropriate behavior was assessed by scan sampling of positive and negative social behaviors based on qualitative behavior assessment and human-animal relationship tests. Results: Modification of the body condition score into a 3-point scale revealed pigs with a moderate body condition (score 1). Moreover, additional criteria such as feed quality confirmed that farms had moderate (score 1) or poor feed quality (score 2), especially those farms located in a high relative humidity region. Conclusions: The developed protocol can be utilized to assess welfare status in an intensive pig farming system. Although further improvements are still needed, this study is a first step in developing a pig welfare assessment protocol that combines animal-, environment-, and management-based measures.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.605-614
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• 2007

Feeding pigs used to be a means of managing domestic resources that may otherwise have been wasted into valuable animal protein. Feeding pigs thus was a form of husbandry. Following recent rapid industrial development, pig rearing has changed from extensive to intensive, but this transformation has been associated with major concerns. The concentration of large amounts of pig manure in small arrears is environmentally hazardous. Moreover, high densities of animals in intensive production systems also impose a health threat for both animals and humans. Furthermore, the use of growth promoters and preventive medicines for higher production efficiencies, such as in-feed antibiotics, also induces microbial resistance thus affects human therapeutics. In addition, consumers are questioning the ethics of treating animals in intensive production systems. Animal welfare, environmental and bio-safe issues are re-shaping the nature of pig production systems. Feeding pigs thus involves not only the consideration of economic traits, but also welfare traits and environmental traits. Thus, a focus on technological feasibility, environmental sustainability and social desirability is essential for successful feeding operations. Feeding pigs now involves multiple projects with different sustainability goals, but goal conflicts exist since no pattern or scenario can fulfill all sustainability goals and the disagreements are complicated by reduced or even no use of in-feed antibiotics. Thus it is difficult to feed pigs in a manner that meets all goals of high quality, safe product, eco- and bio-sustainability, animal welfare and profit. A sustainable pig production system thus requires a prioritization of goals based on understanding among consumers, society and producers and needs to view from both a local and global perspective.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2024

Starting from 2030, mandatory group housing for pregnant sows on pig farms has been enforced, requiring to secure the group housing spaces for pregnant sows. Additionally, six weeks after mating, pregnant sows are obligated to be raised in group housing spaces, and, the use of individual stalls is prohibited. This study analyzed the impact of mandatory group housing for pregnant sows on the pig industry using the equilibrium displacement model (EDM). The results showed a decrease in production due to the increase in space allocation per sow, but more significantly, consumers' willingness to pay, driven by animal welfare considerations, increased. This led to the increase in retail prices and farm prices by 13% and 25%, respectively. Analyzing the changes in social welfare, consumer surplus is increased by 5,887 billion won, and producer surplus is also increased by 10,655 billion won, contributing to the total increase in social welfare of 16,542 billion won. This suggests that the mandatory group housing for pregnant sows have positive impacts on both consumers and producers. However, this study did not consider the cost aspect, and, therefore future research is required to address the issue of cost.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1519-1524
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• 2015

It is well known that prepartum sows have an innate motivation to build a nest before parturition. Under commercial conditions, however, the farrowing crate, which is widely used in modern pig husbandry, inhibits this innate behaviour through the lack of space, materials, or both. Thus, restriction of nest-building behaviour could generate increased stress, resulting in a decrease in maternal endogenous hormones. Hence, it could lead to detrimental effects on farrowing and lactating performance. Here we review interactions between prepartum nest-building behaviour, stress and maternal endogenous hormone levels, and discuss their effects on parturition, lactation, and welfare of sows and offspring.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.187-191
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• 2024

This study aimed to investigate the effect of treating environmental purification insect larvae to pig manure on crude ash contents and ammonia production. The experiment set up consisted go two groups: 1 kg of each 3^rd instar TM (Tenebrio molitor) and 3^rd instar PBS (Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis) larvae in Experiment 1 or 3^rd and 4^th instar of HI (Hermetia illucens L.) larvae in Experiment 2 were treated with 5 kg of pig manure. In Experiment 1, the crude ash content was higher in TM larvae-treated pig manure at days 0 and 5 (p>0.05), but was similar to that in PBS larvae-treated pig manure over (p>0.05). Ammonia production was observed at day 0 of TM and PBS larvae-treated pig manure (p<0.05), but did not occur thereafter. For Experiment 2, there was significant difference in crude ash content of 3^th and 4^th instar HI larvae-treated pig manure on day 15. Additionally, ammonia production was found in 3^th and 4^th instar HI larvae-treated pig manure at days 0 and 5, but did not continue over time. In conclusion, treating TM, PBS and HI to pig manure changed the crude ash contents and reduced ammonia through the ability to decompose pig manure. Thus, environmental impact can be minimized using environmental purification insect larvae.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.66 no.2
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• pp.237-250
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• 2024

The emission of noxious gases is a significant problem in pig production, as it can lead to poor production, welfare concerns, and environmental pollution. The noxious gases are the gasses emitted from the pig manure that contribute to air pollution. The increased concentration of various harmful gasses can pose health risks to both animals and humans. The major gases produced in the pig farm include methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and volatile fatty acids, which are mainly derived from the fermentation of undigested or poorly digested nutrients. Nowadays research has focused on more holistic approaches to obtain a healthy farm environment that helps animal production. The use of probiotics, prebiotics, dietary enzymes, and medicinal plants in animal diets has been explored as a means of reducing harmful gas emissions. This review paper focuses on the harmful gas emissions from pig farm, the mechanisms of gas production, and strategies for reducing these emissions. Additionally, various methods for reducing gas in pigs, including probiotic interventions; prebiotic interventions, dietary enzymes supplementation, and use of medicinal plants and organic acids are discussed. Overall, this paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of knowledge on reducing noxious gas in pigs and offers valuable insights for pig producers, nutritionists, and researchers working in this area.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.37 no.4_spc
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• pp.755-774
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• 2024

The main objective of this study was to present data on the current situation and future trends of pig meat production in the European Union-27 (EU). Pig production has played an important social and economic role for centuries in many states of the EU. In 2022, pig meat production in the EU reached 23 M tons, which represented 21% of total production worldwide. The two key reasons that justify such amount of pork produced, are the acceptance and high consumption of the meat by the local population and the high quality of the meat produced which facilitated pork export. However, current data show a reduction in pork production for the last three years, as a consequence of a series of events that include i) problems with the chain of ingredients supply, ii) uncontrolled increase in African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreaks, iii) fast recovery of pig production in China, iv) increasing concerns by the rural population on the high cost to meet future requirements of the EU legislation on farm management, environmental sustainability and animal welfare, v) increased cost of all inputs involved in pig production and vi) limited interest of the new farmer generation to work on the pig sector. Consequently, pork production is expected to decrease in the EU for the next years, although sales will be maintained at a relative high level because pork is the meat preferred by local consumers in most EU countries. In order to maintain the favourable position of the pork industry in the near future, strategies to implement include: i) maintain the quality of the meat destinated to export markets, ii) improve the control of outbreaks of ASF and other swine diseases, iii) implementation of technological innovations to improve working conditions making more attractive to work in the pork sector of the food chain to the new generation of farmers and workers.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.283-300
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• 2004

Currently commercial dry sows are housed in individual stalls and subject to restricted feeding. These sows often show stereotypic behaviours which increase their maintenance energy requirement. Group housing is desirable to improve animal welfare and public perception. However, under restricted feeding systems, group-housed dry sows are also aggressive. The feed intake of these sows is variable, depending on their social rank, which results in different milk production and variable piglet performance. These problems can be solved by ad libitum feeding systems, but the large capacity of intake by dry sows will not allow this feeding system to be practical as high feeding level during pregnancy can reduce reproduction performance of sows. Current research indicates that feeding high fibre diets to dry sows enables sows to be fed ad libitum, but the effect of dietary fibre on feed intake and nutrient utilisation is dependent on the quality of fibre sources. Most research has focused on sugar beet pulp, straw, lucerne meal and by-products, but there is a need to identify and evaluate some widely available and cheap fibre materials and feed grains for developing the best strategy to control nutrient intake of dry sows while feeding ad libitum.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.25-35
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• 2013

In swine house, dust generation comes from various sources and is known to be harmful both for the animals and the farmers because the dust contains biological and gaseous matters. When farmers are constantly exposed to the dusts, they can suffer chronic or acute respiratory symptoms and have high probability of manifesting various diseases. To address this problem, understanding of the mechanism of dust generation is very important. In this paper, the dust concentration of inhalable, respirable, TSP and $PM_{10}$ were monitored and analyzed according to the pig-activity level, ventilation quantity and feeding method in fattening pig house. From the measured results, in case of the concentration of TSP, an inverse-linear relation with ventilation rate ($R^2=0.88$) and linear relation with the installation height of feed supply pipe ($R^2=0.73$) were determined. However in case of the concentration of $PM_{10}$, no particular relationship with the variables was observed. Using the concentration of inhalable and respirable dust based on the pig-activity level, multi-variate regression analysis was conducted and results have shown that the movement of pigs can contribute to the dust generation (p＜0.05, $R^2=0.71$, 0.61). The relationship determined between dust generation and environmental variables investigated in this study is very significant and useful in conducting dust-reduction researches.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.1207-1214
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• 2017

Since the industrialization of swine production in the late 1900s, swine farms in the United States, as well as in Europe, have largely become consolidated. Pig farms became larger in size but fewer in number, with 91% of market pigs being produced by large operations with 5,000 or more pigs on-site in the US, and only 3% of the total utilized agricultural land representing organic farming. Such change in the market made it difficult for small farmers to stay competitive, forcing them to find alternative ways to reduce the cost of production and increase profit using the outdoor production system. In contrast to the indoor confinement system, outdoor production system uses pasture-based units and/or deep-bedded hoop structures that promote animal welfare and environmental sustainability with a lower capital investment. In accord with the growing concern for animal and environmental welfare and food safety by the consumers, small farmers practicing an outdoor production system are seeing increased opportunities for marketing their products in the pork niche market. Unlike the general belief that the reproductive and growth performance measures of the outdoor sows and piglets are poorer in comparison with the animals reared indoors, studies showed that there was no significant difference in the performance measures, and some traits were even better in outdoor animals. Improved reproductive and production traits can increase the sustainability of outdoor farming. Present study reviewed the recent studies comparing the performance measures, meat quality and health of indoor and outdoor animals, as well as the efforts to improve the outdoor production system through changes in management such as hut types and breed of animals.