After Midterm Flashcards
What is the physical environment?
= the housing and the feeding system
What is the social environment?
= the other animals and humans
How can the physical environment impact welfare?
- can prevent performance of appropriate behavior
- can be barren
- can damage or injure
- can increase likelihood of disease
- can frighten or cause discomfort
How can the social environment impact welfare?
- parent-offspring bond disrupted
- group size unusual
- stocking density (how many animals per unit of surface) or grouping is high
- group membership disrupted
- animals isolated
What are advantages of gestation stalls?
- efficient space use
- reduce aggression
- allow individual feeding
- facilitate veterinary care and safe for humans
- hygienic
Why do we see aggression in pregnant pigs?
= they fight over food because they get hungry during pregnancy
- hungry because we restrict their feed because they produce less milk later and have lameness issues and issues farrowing
What are disadvantages of gestation stalls?
- lack of space to move, turn around, perform natural behaviors
- lack of exercise (increases duration of farrowing and lameness)
- lack social contacts
- may be stressed by aggressive neighbor
- increased stress (cortisol and fear of new things)
- causes boredom and frustration (leads to abnormal behavior and apathy)
What is dynamic space (after T. Curtis)?
= space that can actually be used by an animal for movement
- i.e. without bumping into someone or something
Where are gestation stalls banned?
- in EU since 2003
- in US currently only in states like California, where not a lot of pigs are reared
- in Canada: banned for newly built facilities but not for already existing facilities - will be banned form 2024 onward
Advantages of farrowing crates?
- efficient in terms of space
- reduce piglet crushing
- facilitate veterinary care, hygienic
- safe for humans
- protect piglets against aggression from sow
What are disadvantages of farrowing crates?
- postural changes are difficult
- may restrict access to teat
- sow cannot turn around
- cortisol MAY be increased
- limited interaction between mother and piglets and limited nest building
What is nest building in sows?
- natural behavior
- sows are very motivated to perform it
- perform it right before they give birth (ca. 24 hrs)
What are the advantages of cages for hens?
- economic
- hygienic
- easy management
- easy egg collection (automatic)
- helps to control feather pecking
What are disadvantages of cages for hens?
- behavioral restrictions (foraging behavior, locomotion, perching, comfort behavior like dust bathing)
- hens show signs of frustration for about an hour before laying eggs, since they cannot isolate themselves or choose lying site
What behavior are poultry most motivated to perform?
Nesting!
What kinds of analgesics are there?
1) Opiods (narcotic analgesics) that reduce the excitability of the nervous system
2) Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAIDS) that block the production of chemicals that cause inflammation, block the body from making prostaglandins thereby reducing swelling and pain
What is the function of prostaglandins?
= they promote and resolve inflammation as a response to injury or disease
What are the cardinal signs of inflammation?
1) Dolor (pain)
2) Calor (heat)
3) Rubor (redness)
4) Tumor (swelling)
5) Functio laesa (loss of function)
What are the top reasons for lack of analgesics?
1) Difficulty recognizing pain
2) Lack of knowledge about appropriate therapy
What are the two original components of pain?
1) Nociception = physical hurt/discomfort caused by injury or disease
2) Emotional suffering = feeling/experiencing pain
What is the updated definition of pain?
= a distressing experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage with sensory, emotional, cognitive, and social components
How does pain affect animal physiology and behavior?
it changes it to
- reduce/avoid damage
- reduce likelihood of recurrence
- promote recovery
What is the theory of analogy?
= humans and animals share common ancestor and humans and vertebrates possess primitive areas of brain to process nociceptive information (medulla, thalamus, cortex, and limbic system)
but still cannot assume we all experience identical feelings just because pathways same, just indicative of subjective states
What are the most frequently injured body parts in animals?
legs and feet (hooves, claws, paws…)
What is inflammatory pain?
= single greatest cause of pain in vertebrate species and may arise in absence of a trigger like tissue damage (ex: mastitis = inflammation of mammary gland)