Vol. 11, Special Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
V Vinitha, A Clement Ebenezer Henry, A Paramasivam, G Rajarajan and T Sivakumar

Abstract:
An experiment was conducted to study the influence of early weaning on different behaviour pattern of Large White Yorkshire piglets. Piglets from three distinct sows of the same parity were considered as three treatment groups (T₁, T₂, and T₃), each with eight piglets, and weaned at 28 days (T₁), 42 days (T₂), and 56 days (T₃) of age, respectively. Behavioural observation was carried out among three weaning groups which includes playing, fighting, tail biting, ear biting, feeding, water intake, sleeping and belly nosing which were observed for 24 hours with the help of closed-circuit camera for 15 days. The time (minutes) spent with percentage of time spent in a day for playing was (31.98 ± 1.55) with 4.85 per cent (P<0.01), fighting (1.15 ± 0.07) with 0.17 per cent (P<0.01), tail biting (0.78 ± 0.07) with 0.12 per cent (P<0.01), ear biting (1.42 ± 0.34) with 0.22 per cent (P<0.05), feeding (54.16 ± 0.36) with 8.66 per cent (P<0.01) and belly nosing (0.64 ± 0.18) with 0.10 per cent (P<0.01) were significantly more in 28^th day (T₁) weaned piglets followed by 42^nd day (T₂) weaned piglets and lesser in 56^th day (T₃) weaned piglets. Water intake (2.48 ± 0.09) with 0.29 per cent (P<0.01) and sleeping (798.09 ± 6.12) with 91.76 per cen t(P<0.01) were significantly more in 56^th day (T₃) weaned piglets followed by 42^nd day (T₂) weaned piglets and lesser in 28^th day (T₁) weaned piglets. From the study, it is understood that certain vices were comparatively more in early weaned piglets. Hence, it was concluded that provision of environmental enrichment like chain, wood, toys, fabric sacks and rope in early stage of life is advisable to reduce the damaging behaviour in early weaned piglets.