群体规模和地面空间占有量对猪的福利和生产性能的影响

Effect of Group Size and Floor-space Allowance on Animal Welfare and Performance in Pigs

猪是一种群居性很强的哺乳动物。在野生状态下,它们可以根据需要自己调整群体的大小来适应自然环境。可是在集约化生产条件下,猪被限定在一定的群体规模下高密度饲养,它们不能自由地进行调整。密度过大可引起争斗、咬尾等异常行为的发生;群体规模的大小可影响猪争斗行为的发生频率等,这样势必会影响到猪的福利和生产性能。作者综述了地面空间占有量和群体规模对猪的福利和生产性能的影响。在研究群体规模和地面空间占有量时,很容易混淆二者的影响作用,以前出现过很多把群体规模和地面空间占有量搞混现象。所以针对以前的研究中出现的混淆地面空间占有量和群体规模的现象,作者提出了避免或减少这些混淆发生的一些方法。

Pigs are species with a strong tendency to live in groups. In wild,they can adjust their group size to accommo date to the environment by themselves. In intensive livestock farms, pigs were stocked in limited pens. And they can not get a- way from their groups freely. There will be a high risk of abnormal behavior if stoking density is too high. Group size can affect the frequency of aggressiveness, which may further affect the welfare and performance of pigs. In this paper, we discuss the re- cent researches on group size and floor-space allowance and find that confounding is inevitably introduced when the factors un- der study include stocking density and group size. In response to this situation we offered some suggestions to avoid or minimize the confounders.