Conséquences de l'élevage de porcs mâles entiers sur la relation homme-animal en environnement conventionnel et enrichi - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2011

Consequences of rearing entire males on the human‐animal relationship in a conventional and an enriched environment

Conséquences de l'élevage de porcs mâles entiers sur la relation homme-animal en environnement conventionnel et enrichi

Résumé

Castration is notably used to reduce pigs’ aggressiveness towards humans and facilitate handling. However, there are no scientific data to confirm this. We compared entire and castrated male pigs reared in a conventional or an enriched environment.Eighty males (groups of 10) were studied: 40 surgically castrated at 5‐6 days of age and 40 left entire. Half of each type was reared in a conventional environment (1 m²/animal, slatted floor) and the other half in an enriched environment (2.5 m²/animal, strawand outdoor run). We evaluated the pigs’ manageability during weighing and interactions with humans at 80 and 140 days of age in a testing pen. Animals from the enriched environment required less pushing to enter the weighing cage than those from theconventional environment. During the experiment, no entire male expressed any aggressive behaviour towards the human present. At 80 days of age, entire males stayed closer to the human for longer periods of time than castrates, and they reacted tothe human’s departure with an increase in locomotor activity. Regardless of age, pigs from the enriched environment were less likely to stand next to the human than those from the conventional environment, and they vocalized more in the human’spresence and after his departure.These results do not support the bad reputation of entire males (aggressive, difficult to handle). Enriching the environment did not change the effects of non‐castration on the human‐animal relationship but did lead to less interest in the human involved in theexperiment.

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hal-02744449 , version 1 (03-06-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02744449 , version 1
  • PRODINRA : 44087

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Céline Tallet, Armelle Brillouët, Valérie Paulmier, Marie-Christine Meunier-Salaün, Armelle Prunier. Conséquences de l'élevage de porcs mâles entiers sur la relation homme-animal en environnement conventionnel et enrichi. 43. Journées de la Recherche Porcine, Feb 2011, Paris, France. ⟨hal-02744449⟩
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