Impacts of sow behaviour on reproductive performance: current understanding

Abstract

From the perspective of animal welfare, sows housed in group housing systems are recommended, which is conducive to health problems and the release of natural behaviour, but can lead to other problems such as social pressure due to competition for limited resources. Sow natural behaviour can be used to improve physiological and mental health to ameliorate reproductive performance. However, the natural behaviour of sow is ignored in modern intensive housing groups. The challenges faced by social behaviour, maternal behaviour and dietary behaviour of sows in a group-housing system are discussed in this paper. Furthermore, many management strategies will affect sow behaviour, such as diet management and housing systems, providing adequate nutrition, and a reasonable environment for sows. These can be considered the basis for the successful farrowing of high-production sows. Therefore, sow performance can be improved by influencing sow behaviour through management strategies such as reasonable stocking density, a good feeding environment and suitable feed for the growth stage.

Keywords

• Sow behaviour
• dietary behaviour
• maternal behaviour
• reproductive performance
• management strategies