Use of vocalization as an indicator of pig welfare

• Grant number: 07/03462-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2007
• End date: August 31, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry
• Principal Investigator: Késia Oliveira da Silva Miranda
• Grantee: Vinicius Leite de Campos Menegale
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The environmental comfort, can express one of the reasons that keeps a good productivity and becomes an important tool to maintain the animal in welfare conditions. The environment, considered actually, is not more only thermodynamic, the interaction between environment and the gas production, dust and noises, is fundamental when the effect of these elements are extended in the animal’s performance. The present work has as objective the vocalization study of the swine’s behavior in the maternity phase and gestation as a way to interpret, register and analyze the animals’ vocalization with the purpose to monitor the indications of stress in the industrial swine production. The experiment will begin with the vocalization’s study of sow in gestation and the same with the piglets in the maternity, measuring also the temperature and the air humidity trying some relations with these climatic variables with handling and welfare.