Progress 02/15/16 to 06/14/20
Outputs
Target Audience:Researchers and extension professionals, swine producers, allied industries, consultants or technical service providers Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided valuable opportunities for training and professional development of graduate students, undergraduate research assistants, and visiting professors. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Publication of peer-reviewed articles, conference/symposium presentations and papers, extension publications, and producer workshops/meetings. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Overall impact statement:Overall, pork production efficiency has been increasing, but preweaning mortality continues to inhibit further efficiency and is a major economic, health, and welfare challenge for producers. Farrowing housing design and environmental management has largely been unexplored and unchanged over the last several decades. Producers need evidenced-based recommendations to reduce preweaning mortality and enhance overall piglet health and welfare. Our research team has successfully increased the scientific knowledge on the individual and combined effects of farrowing stall size and one or two supplemental heat lamps on piglet productivity and behavior. This information was previously unknown. Further, it was demonstrated that infrared thermography was a poor indicator for conducting piglet health evaluations and detecting low colostrum consumptions by piglets. This information has propagated to all aspects of the swine industry and has enabled academics, welfare organizations, commodity groups, allied industry, and producers to base future decisions on rigorous scientific evidence. As a whole, this body of work on reducing preweaning mortality through farrowing housing design and environmental management has ultimately enhanced sustainability of pork production in the US. Objective 1... Provide recommendations to producers on number and location of localized heating sources. The majority of US producers use one or a combination of two heat lamps to supplement the thermal needs of piglets. Implementing two heat lamps doubles the cost per farrowing stall, increase electrical energy usage, and includes greater management responsibilities. This work showed no difference in piglet productivity when housed with one or two heat lamps. However, when presented with a second heat lamp, piglets spent on average three more hours each day in the heated areas. There were no differences in sow lying orientation with regards to heat lamp locations. These results indicate that a second heat lamp is effective in increasing the amount of time piglets spend in heated areas without negatively influencing sow thermal comfort. Producers can now make informed economic and welfare decisions on the use of one or two heaters for the production system. Objective 2... Provide foundational data for new farrowing crate designs and future research. The design of the conventional farrowing stalls has remained relatively unchanged and design guides like MidWest Plan Service have not been update, despite evidence showing increased sow size, piglet numbers, and weaning weights. This work showed no differences among three different farrowing stall sizes on piglet productivity. Piglet location analysis revealed that piglets in traditional stalls spent less time under heat lamps and more time in creep areas than piglets in the expanded creep and sow area stall layouts. This indicates that providing piglets with wider creep encourages them to spend more time in the heated areas. Sows spent more time lying and less time sitting when housed in wider stalls, indicating an increased level of comfort. These outcomes have enabled producers can make informed economic and welfare decisions for farrowing house remodels or new construction. Objective 3 & 4... Evaluate feasibility of using thermography for piglet health evaluation and to detect low colostrum consumption by piglets immediately after parturition. It isimportant for the piglets to find the udder (teat-seeking) and to begin accessing colostrum. Those piglets that take longer to reach the udder and suckle colostrum have lower antibody titers, greater drop in body temperature, and greater risk of mortality. This work found that rectal temperature and infrared thermography were poor indicators of piglet health and colostrum consumption by piglets. Producers need to use alternative approaches to the assess piglet health and colostrum consumption.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Leonard, S. M., Xin, H., Brown-Brandl, T., Ramirez, B. C. & Dutta, S. (2019). Effects of one or two heat lamps on sow behavior and piglet performance in farrowing stalls. Abstract presented at Pig Welfare Symposium, Minneapolis, MN. [1st place Student Poster Competition and Peoples Choice Award Recipient]
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Leonard, S. M., Xin, H., Brown-Brandl, T. & Ramirez, B. C. (2018). An image acquisition system for studying behaviors of sows and piglets in farrowing barns. Paper presented at the 10th International Livestock Environment Symposium and 1st US Precision Livestock Farming Symposium, Omaha, NE. Paper No. 18
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Leonard, Suzanne M., "Evaluation of swine gestation-farrowing facility space and management for improving production, welfare, and infectious disease containment" (2020). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 17980. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/17980
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Leonard, S. M., Xin, H., Brown-Brandl, T. & Ramirez, B. C. (2019). Development and application of an image acquisition system for characterizing sow behavior in farrowing stalls. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 163. doi: 10.1016/j.compag.2019.104866
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Leonard, S. M., Xin, H., Brown-Brandl, T., Ramirez, B. C., Dutta, S. & Rohrer, G. A. (2020). Effects of farrowing stall layout and number of heat lamps on sow and piglet production performance. Animals, 10(2), 348. doi: 10.3390/ani10020348
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Leonard, S. M.#, Xin, H., Brown-Brandl, T., Ramirez, B. C., Johnson, A. K., Dutta, S. & Rohrer, G. A. Effects of farrowing stall layout and number of heat lamps on and sow piglet behavior. Applied Animal Behavior Science, (under review).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Leonard, S. M., Xin, H., Brown-Brandl, T., Ramirez, B. C. & Dutta, S. (2020). Effects of piglet creep floor area on sow behavior and litter productivity in farrowing stalls. Paper presented at American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual International Meeting 2020, Virtual. Paper No. 2000135.
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Progress 02/15/18 to 02/14/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Academic research community, pork producers, equipment companies, professional consultants Changes/Problems:A no-cost extension was requested and recently approved. The extension was necessary to collect the adequate amount of data (replicates) from the newly constructed swine farrowing research facility at USDA Meat Animal Research Center. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided opportunities for academic training of a graduate research assistant (Suzanne Leonard, PhD student in ABE) and three undergraduate research assistant (Brad Richardson, a Senior in ABE; Sam Hueser, a Junior in ABE; James Griswold, a Sophomore in ABE). In addition, it has provided opportunities for professional development of other academic personnel (visiting professor, postdoc and other graduate students who benefited from visiting the project site and be involved in the project discussion). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Technical presentation at professional international conference - International Livestock Environment Symposium. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Continue developing the image processing algorithms and process all of the images, and finish collecting thermal images and blood samples for piglet health status. Complete the statistical analysis and begin writing manuscripts and dissertation to further disseminate study results.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Construction of the farrowing barn was finished in August 2017. The barn houses 60 sows, divided into three rooms of 20 sows each. Within each room there are two rows of 10 farrowing stalls. For our study, we are using three different farrowing stall layouts: 5 ft wide by 7 ft long with a 24 inch wide sow area, 6 ft wide by 8 ft long with 24 inch wide sow area, and 6 ft wide by 8 ft long with 28 inch wide sow area. The farrowing stalls all have outer dimensions of 9 ft long by 6 ft wide, and have a uniform slatted floor over the entire area. Additional panels were added to adjust the length and width of the creep area for the desired treatments. The sow crates were designed with adjustable back gate widths, and spacers were added to expand the front of the crates for the 28" treatments. The three crate layouts were randomized across the three rooms, ensuring that they were evenly distributed along the length of the barn. The stall layouts will remain in the same positions for the duration of the study. Each of the farrowing crate layouts were to be tested using one vs. two heat lamps in the creep areas. The heat lamp conditions were randomly assigned, with a new randomization being used for each farrowing group. The three layouts and two heat lamp conditions provide a total of six treatments. Triangular theatrical trusses were mounted running the length of the rooms, with one truss above each row of farrowing stalls. One Microsoft Kinect V2 sensor was mounted on the truss above each farrowing stall, providing an aerial view of the sow crate and creep area below. The Kinects were mounted in waterproof plastic boxes with hinged lids, so the lids can easily be closed to protect the electronics during washdown. Each Kinect is controlled by its own Zotac Zbot mini-PC, mounted in a waterproof plastic box on the wall behind the farrowing stall. The PC boxes have a clear front lid and a 7 inch Adafruit LCD display screen, enabling the user to quickly check system status. Ethernet cables connect the mini PCs to a 50TB Synology disk station, stored in a waterproof cabinet in the pedestrian hallway. All 20 mini-PCs from one room are routed through a switch and save images to the same disk station. One disk station will continually store the images from one farrowing group in one room. A Matlab executable was developed to control the Kinect sensors. The program captures a digital and depth image once every five seconds for the duration of the farrowing cycle. Data were collected from September 2017 to October 2018, with a total of 444 sows and litters being collected. Specialized Matlab programs are being developed to process the images for animal behavior information. We are investigating if and how sow posture budget, or time spent lying, sitting, standing, or kneeling, is affected by the six treatments. We are also exploring the number of sow posture changes each day. For the one heat lamp treatments, we are comparing the amount of time sows spend with their udder vs. back towards the heat lamp across the three stall layouts. Sow behavior analysis will also identify time spent exhibiting feeding and drinking behavior. Preliminary analysis of the sow behavior information commenced in February 2018, and data processing on 60 sows has been completed to date. These preliminary assessments were used to evaluate processing algorithm accuracy, and improvements to the algorithm are underway. We are developing a machine learning program to determine piglet location within the crate. This will enable us to compare where piglets choose to spend their time and how that is affected by heat lamp placement and stall size. At present, we are evaluating the accuracy of the piglet program to ensure it is satisfactory before beginning to process the images. Production data were collected as well, in order to compare percent of piglet crushings and average daily gain among the treatments. Thermal images and blood samples were collected from select litters to evaluate their surface temperature and health status. Data collection for this portion is scheduled to continue in the upcoming months.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Leonard S., H. Xin, T. Brown-Brandl, and B. C. Ramirez. 2018. An image acquisition system for studying behaviors of sows and piglets in farrowing barns. Technical presentation and paper at the Tenth International Symposium on Livestock Environment (ILES X), Sept 25-27, Omaha, NE, USA
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Progress 02/15/17 to 02/14/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Scientific community (researchers and extension personnel), swine producers, allied companies, policy makers, and other stakeholders interested in swine well-being and production efficiency. Changes/Problems:Construction of the new swine farrowing barn at the USDA Meat Animal Research Center was unexpectedly delayed, which pushed back the starting time of the experiment. We are now on track collecting quality data. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided opportunities for academic training of a graduate research assistant (Suzanne Leonard, PhD student in ABE) and an undergraduate research assistant (Brad Richardson, a Junior in ABE). In addition, it has provided opportunities for professional development of other academic personnel (visiting professor, postdoc and other graduate students who benefited from visiting the project site and be involved in the project discussion). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Yes, through conference presentations in the US and overseas. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Continue data collection and data analysis. Present intermediate results of the study at the Tenth International Symposium on Livestock Environment (ILES X) to be held Sept. 25-27, 2018, in Omaha, NE.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Construction of the farrowing barn was finished in August 2017. The barn houses 60 sows, divided into three rooms of 20 sows each. Within each room there are two rows of 10 farrowing stalls. For our study, we are using three different farrowing stall layouts: 5 ft wide by 7 ft long with a 24 inch wide sow area, 6 ft wide by 8 ft long with 24 inch wide sow area, and 6 ft wide by 8 ft long with 28 inch wide sow area. The farrowing stalls all have outer dimensions of 9 ft long by 6 ft wide, and have a uniform slatted floor over the entire area. Additional panels were added to adjust the length and width of the creep area for the desired treatments. The sow crates were designed with adjustable back gate widths, and spacers were added to expand the front of the crates for the 28" treatments. The three crate layouts were randomized across the three rooms, ensuring that they were evenly distributed along the length of the barn. The stall layouts will remain in the same positions for the duration of the study. Each of the farrowing crate layouts were to be tested using one vs. two heat lamps in the creep areas. The heat lamp conditions were randomly assigned, with a new randomization being used for each farrowing group. The three layouts and two heat lamp conditions provide a total of six treatments. Triangular theatrical trusses were mounted running the length of the rooms, with one truss above each row of farrowing stalls. One Microsoft Kinect V2 sensor was mounted on the truss above each farrowing stall, providing an aerial view of the sow crate and creep area below. The Kinects were mounted in waterproof plastic boxes with hinged lids, so the lids can easily be closed to protect the electronics during washdown. Each Kinect is controlled by its own Zotac Zbot mini-PC, mounted in a waterproof plastic box on the wall behind the farrowing stall. The PC boxes have a clear front lid and a 7 inch Adafruit LCD display screen, enabling the user to quickly check system status. Ethernet cables connect the mini PCs to a 50TB Synology disk station, stored in a waterproof cabinet in the pedestrian hallway. All 20 mini-PCs from one room are routed through a switch and save images to the same disk station. One disk station will continually store the images from one farrowing group in one room. A Matlab executable was developed to control the Kinect sensors. The program captures a digital and depth image once every five seconds for the duration of the farrowing cycle. Specialized Matlab programs are being developed to process the images for animal behavior information. We are investigating if and how sow posture budget, or time spent lying, sitting, standing, or kneeling, is affected by the six treatments. We are also exploring the number of sow posture changes each day. For the one heat lamp treatments, we are comparing the amount of time sows spend with their udder vs. back towards the heat lamp across the three stall layouts. We are developing a program to determine piglet location within the crate. This will enable us to compare where piglets choose to spend their time and how that is affected by heat lamp placement and stall size. Production data are being collected as well, in order to compare percent of piglet crushings among the treatments. Data collection began in September 2017, and to date approximately 20 complete data sets have been collected for each treatment. Analysis of the sow behavior information commenced in February 2018, and the piglet behavior program is currently under development.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Leonard S., H. Xin, T. Brown-Brandl, J. Stinn, A. Johnson, and K. Liu. 2017. Quantification of static and dynamic spaces for sows. Technical presentation at the 2017 Annual International Meeting of American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, July 17-19, Spokane, WA, USA
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Progress 02/15/16 to 02/14/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Researchers and extension personnel in academia, swine producers, allied companies, and other stakeholders interested in swine production, and animal welfare and health. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training of graduate student (Suzanne Leonard) in knowledge of animal behavior and welfare, experiment design, data collection of sow behaviors with 3-D camera, and image processing. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Technical presentations at the 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting held in Orlando, FL, July 17-20, 2016; and the First Asian Conference on Precision Livestock Farming held in Beijing, China, Sept 9-11, 2016. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Collect and analyze additional data on postural behaviors of sows before, during and after farrowing with heat lamp in the creep area (on the side), which combined with the existing data on 15 sows will lead to a journal manuscript; Collect and analyze additional data on dynamic space needs of sows in an unrestricted environment; Fabricate and install image data acquisition units needed to study the impact of farrowing-crate size and layout on sow and piglet behaviors; Start data collection and analysis following task 3.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
IMPACT: The overall goal for this project is to enhance the health and well-being of pre-weaning piglets through better understanding the sow's diurnal posture pattern, meeting the thermal and space needs of modern commercial litters, and prompt detection of undernourished or "fallback" piglets or the onset of disease. A computer vision-based system has been developed that automatically recognizes sow behaviors (lying, sitting, standing, kneeling, feeding, drinking, and shifting) in farrowing crate. This system enables the researchers to carry out the experiments to evaluate the impact of different farrowing crate sizes and layouts and quantify postural behavior of sows, thus increasing the knowledge needed to enhance the health and wll-being of pre-weaning piglets. Objective 1) Evaluate the impact of different farrowing crate size/layout (conventional crate, expanded creep area crate, expanded sow and creep area crate) equipped with one vs. two localized heat sources on pre-weaning piglet health and mortality. Baseline behavior data have been collected from 15 farrowing/lactating sows in conventional-size farrowing crates (1.5 m x 2.1 m). The data have been collected and analyzed using the newly developed computer vision-based system. Data from additional 20 sows will be collected to enhance the dataset. In addition, data collection and analysis have been ongoing since January 2017 that quantifies the dynamic as well as static space needs of gestation sows with different body sizes in a space-unrestricted pen. At the time of this report, 20 sows have been recorded, although only about half of them yielded useable data because some of the sows were out of the viewing range of the image camera. We are targeting at least 20 sows with quality, usable data. New flexible farrowing crates at USDA-MARC have been procured and will be installed by this summer. Then trials will commence to evaluate the impact of different farrowing-crate sizes and layouts equipped with one or two heat lamps on sow and piglet behaviors. Objective 2) Quantify postural behaviors of sows before parturition and during lactation as affected by crate size/layout and localized heat source (1 vs. 2); and distribution of piglets in the crate. According to the preliminary data with 15 animals, sows showed no strong preference to lie on one side vs. the other before farrowing independent of heat lamp presence on the side. Heat lamp in creep area affected sow's lying side in the first 6 d post-farrowing, with significant less time of udders being toward the heat (P<0.05). Sows displayed distinctive behavioral changes, i.e., movement, 24 h prior to farrowing or on the day of farrowing, making it possible to determine farrowing time by automatically monitoring the behavioral changes. More data will be collected and analyzed. Objective 3) Assess the relationship between surface temperature of the piglets and their health status. Data have not yet been collected on this objective.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Lao, F., T.M. Brown-Brandl, J.P. Stinn, G. Teng, K. Liu, S.M. Leonard, and H. Xin. 2016. Sow lying behaviors before, during and after farrowing. Proceedings of the First Asian Conference on Precision Livestock Farming, Beijing, China, September 9-11, 2016; eds. G. Zhang, C. Wang, W. Zheng, and D. Berckmans, pp 177-179.
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