Impact of environmental enrichment on growth, behavior, and welfare of weanling piglets from pre-weaning to 6 weeks of age

The experiment was carried out to study the effect of environmental enrichment before and after weaning on the growth, behaviours, and welfare of weaning pigs. A total of 360 weaning pigs (average initial body weight 6.32 ± 0.10 kg) were randomly allotted to one of the three treatments on the basis of initial body weight. A completely randomized design was used to conduct this study. There were ten pigs per pen, with 6 replicates for each treatment. The experimental treatments were control; WBW-1, play object included one week before weaning/not included; and WBW-2, play object included two weeks before weaning/not included. Weaning pigs raised under environmental enrichment treatments had greater average daily gain and average daily feed intake in phase 1 and greater average daily gain and average daily feed intake in phase 2 and overall than pigs reared in the control group. However, treatment and interaction between treatment and play object installation did not exhibit significant differences. The WBW-1 exhibited a lower body weight coefficient of variation of weaning pigs in phase 1 and phase 2 than weaning pigs that were raised in the control group, however, the interaction between treatment and enriched environment did not show significant differences in phase 1 and 2. The incidence of diarrhea was numerically reduced by enriched environment effect in early phase 1 (d 7) and there were no significant differences in d 14 and d 28. Behaviour traits results showed lower agonistic behaviour, including tail and ear biting by enriched environment effect in phase 1. The enriched environment reduced the skin lesion score in phase 1, however, there were no significant differences in skin lesion score in phase 2. The concentration of hair cortisol was reduced by enriched environment effect at the end of phase 2. These findings suggest that environmental enrichment prior to the weaning process increased growth, group uniformity, and reduced incidence of diarrhea, agonistic behaviour, skin lesions, and concentration of hair cortisol during the post-weaning period. Impact of environmental enrichment on growth, behavior, and welfare of weanling piglets from pre-weaning to 6 weeks of age.