Reducing drinker ‘switching’ reduced water wastage in pigs
Take Home Message: Placing water drinkers apart and the use of bowl rather than bite drinkers will save water costs.
Placing drinkers apart, rather than side-by-side, reduced switching between drinkers and could therefore reduce water wastage. Good news for pig producers, looking to reduce their costs of production.
“Increased numbers of pigs gathered round, and nosing the ground, under ‘bite’ rather than ‘bowl’ drinkers suggest that these drinkers were used for recreational purposes to a greater extent,” said Niamh O’Connell, from Hillsborough’s Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, presenting the results of her trial to delegates at the 2009 British Society of Animal Science’s annual conference.
“This may also have been reflected in the fact that pigs removed their head from the drinker during drinking bouts more frequently with bite than with bowl drinkers.”
She and her team set out to assess behavioural differences at the drinker between pigs offered different types of commercially-available drinker.
“A number of different drinker types are available commercially for pigs. These typically include drinkers where water is dispensed into a bowl or consumed straight from a water nipple.
“The design of drinkers may influence levels of competition at the drinker, and also levels of water wastage. This latter factor has adverse environmental implications and may arise from pigs switching between drinkers during drinking bouts, or using drinkers for ‘recreational’ purposes,” she said, explaining the rational behind her work.
A total of 720 pigs were weaned at four weeks of age and split into groups of 20 to one of six treatments until 10 weeks of age. The treatments consisted of four drinker designs, two of which were tested in two different arrangements.
Behaviour at each of the drinkers was video recorded for one 24-hour period when pigs were four, seven and 10 weeks of age. Instantaneous scans were made of each of the drinkers every hour to record whether or not a pig was using the drinker, the number of pigs apparently queuing to use the drinker, standing close to the drinker (but not queuing), and nosing the floor under the drinker.
“And we found that the proportion of drinking bouts where pigs switched drinkers was significantly higher when bowl drinkers were placed side-by-side rather than apart,” said Dr O’Connell.
More pigs were observed queuing for bowl than for bite drinkers, but more pigs were observed standing in close proximity to bite than to bowl drinkers. In addition, more pigs were observed nosing the ground under bite than bowl drinkers.
“The average length of drinking bouts, or the average proportion of scans where pigs were observed using drinkers, did not differ significantly between treatments,” she added.
To view proceedings of all summaries presented at the Annual Conference 2009 http://www.bsas.org.uk/Publications/Annual_Conference_Proceedings/ To view all Powerpoint presentations http://www.bsas.org.uk/Members_Area/ For further information contact: BSAS on 0131 445 4508 or bsas@sac.ac.uk
