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Improving maternal care of loose housed sows
Housing systems of sows during lactation are shifting from crated systems towards non-restrictive systems, to improve sow welfare. However, the increased behavioural freedom of sows in such loose farrowing systems currently comes with an increase in piglet mortality. In these systems, piglet survival becomes highly dependent on the quality of maternal care. A good mother is thought to be calm, careful and responsive to the needs of her litter. Yet, there are clear differences in maternal care between sows. If all sows would be good to their offspring, loose farrowing systems would be easy to implement.
With this PhD project we aim to increase our understanding of maternal care in loose farrowing systems. The project is funded by TKI Green Top Sectors and Topigs Norsvin, and supervised by Nicoline Soede and Inonge Reimert from the ADP chair group and Egbert Knol from Topigs Norsvin. To me, the most interesting projects combine behavioural observations with physiological parameters. This is precisely what we will do with this project. During the first phase of this project we will perform behavioural observations on loose housed sows with known genotype. The goal is to identify desired maternal behaviours around parturition and during lactation, and relate these to piglet survival and weight gain. This will be done in the new free farrowing nucleus farm of Topigs Norsvin in Canada, called “Innova”.
For now the idea is to use sensors (e.g., heatflux, accelerometers, heartrate) to obtain physiological information in addition to the behavioural observations. This way we could, for example, investigate how stress and pain during parturition will affect maternal behaviour during lactation. The second phase of the project will build upon the first part and intends to elucidate the underlying endocrine regulation of the maternal care behaviours. This will be done by studying the relation between endocrine profiles and the quality of maternal care displayed by sows with expected high vs. low quality of maternal care.
I am very proud of this project already