Yolande Seddon from the University of Saskatchewan has been awarded an industrial research chair in swine welfare from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Investments of about $2 million will fund the five-year study that the professor in the department of large animal clinical sciences at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine is doing to advance understanding in areas important to swine behaviour and welfare.
The federal government and a group of 14 industry partners are providing $837,750 each. The U of S has contributed a further $305,000 to the research chair, with an additional in-kind support of $128,000 from the Canadian swine industry.
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The research program is designed to study swine welfare using behavioural and physiological indicators. Findings will be tested in commercial conditions.
“We’re trying to use this money to be more proactive in our approach to welfare,” said Seddon, an animal ethologist.
“So we’re trying to look for synergies. How do we have a system that is sustainable, meets vital expectations, is economically viable?”
Four goals or focus questions have been defined:
- recognize how early life management contributes to pig robustness, sociability and welfare outcomes in the growing pig
- understand the role of play to enhance pig welfare and promote beneficial production characteristics
- identify and verify biological markers that are characteristic of welfare in growing swine
- assess post-mortem welfare indicators observed from carcasses during abattoir meat inspection
Seddon said the study of animal welfare is evolving. The swine industry is currently converting to group housing systems for gestating sows, which is about 20 percent complete nationwide.
“The challenge is how industry can make that happen in a financially viable way. And so we actually preserve or enhance productivity and make sure that we do improve welfare because that is the goal of having sows out of stalls,” she said.
Pain control continues to be a major challenge with more work needed, such as identifying where pain control can be beneficial to support recovery in animals.
Researchers are making headway to understand certain pain behaviours as well as collecting physiological measures such as blood serum or saliva in the body.
“Where possible we try to use more objective measures. So for pain we have developed a standardized test that records piglet behaviour in a handling chute. There is some evidence to suggest the length of time the piglet takes to navigate the chute is related to pain.”
Seddon identified euthanasia as another area requiring further study.
“It’s never pleasant. We have the caring compassion of killing paradigm, but also making sure we have timely and appropriate euthanasia is important to protecting well-being of animals,” she said.
Of the four goals, Seddon is particularly eager to understand the strengths of early life experiences on the pig and how they influence welfare outcomes.
“If the industry is going to put their efforts and attention anywhere, perhaps this is where we could adjust management practices to derive the greatest benefits — to support enhanced welfare and longevity for animals throughout the production chain.”
As part of pigs’ early life experiences and development, Seddon’s research is looking at the role of play behaviour, which can be identified and have its frequency of expression recorded.
“We also know that it’s a sensitive indicator of welfare state and we are trying to do some blue sky research to see if we can actually harness this developmental behaviour to see if we can enhance welfare in the pigs and enhance immune responsiveness,” she said.
“There’s some very cool science behind this.”
Seddon, 34, is one of the youngest to hold a research chair and has many industrial partners engaged in the project.
“When I registered for this grant process (two years ago), I had to do an awful lot of work to make sure that I was meeting the grade because compared to most people that registered, they’ve often held positions elsewhere, or they’ve held positions with industry.
“I chose to specialize in swine because I came to realize that there were many challenges within the industry and I was interested to try and improve them through science. I concluded that it’s better to understand the species and the industry rather than being a jack-of-all-trades.”
Seddon said her project hinges on industry participation throughout, which she expects will provide a proactive approach to pig welfare.
Her first meeting was to be held April 4 in Mississauga, Ont., at the Maple Leaf Think Food Conference Centre as part of a swine welfare forum.
“The good thing is that because we can talk about this research every step of the way, hopefully the results will be able to be applied on farm and commercially viable at the end of it,” she said.
“Especially when we’re talking about pretty novel concepts, it’s important to have industry communication and buy-in early to make sure that we can tailor the research appropriately.”
