Estudio de la conducta maternal en cerdas (sus scrofa domesticus) y sus crías neonatas en la primera semana de vida

Abstract

Animal behavior is the manifestation of an effort to adapt to the external conditions of the environment developing, in pigs, their behavioral patterns that allow to improve the welfare. The highest prevalence of mortality in piglets occurs in the first three days of life and its survival is mainly due to several factors such weight and temperature, small size, birth order, colostrum consumption, etc. The objective of the present work was to characterize maternal and their offspring behavior along the first week of life during the circadian patterns. The work was carried out in the swine farm "San Francisco" of Arenillas Cantón, El Oro Province in the following environmental conditions: 23.30C-35.10C of temperature and 48.5% - 89.2% of relative humidity. The study, non-experimental, observational and descriptive character, was developed through the filmic record of the behavioral activity of 5 mothers, crossing of the Pietrain-Landrace and their offspring, during 7 consecutive days in production conditions without modifying the management and animal environment. Indicators of maternal behavior were assessed as feeding, suckling and posture and of the offspring as frequency and time of breastfeeding, contact and movements. The results, organized and tabulated, are presented bar diagrams. As the age of the newborns increases, the results show that time and frequency of breastfeeding in lateral decubitus decreases, time and frequency of ingestion of water and food increases progressively from the 1st day postpartum, water (12.8 min, 8.8, times) and food (9.8 min, 2.4 times) to after 7 days, water (20.0 min, 12.6 times) and food (40.2 min, 6.6 times) as consequences of labor effort and the requirement of suckling piglets. As the age of newborn increases, breastfeeding time declines from 762 min (12.7 hours) on the first day to 434.8 min (7.25 hours) on the seventh day. The liquid food supplement offered from the second day of birth was not until the 3rd day that "they started the palatability ingestion" to begin its ingestion from the fourth day although was in the 6th day their total consumption. Physical contact of offspring reduces from 77.73% (± 26 times) of the circadian time in grouping on the 1st day to the separation on the 7th day (55.48%) and the frequency of contact also reduce, 19.2 times at 7 days while the individual posture increased from 7.20 times on the 1st day to 23.80 times on the 7th day, results related to thermoregulatory behavior. The locomotion of offspring, frequency and time, increase with age as physical activity of environmental exploration, socialization and stimulation for their bone-muscular development. It is concluded that in both categories, mothers and offspring, there have gradually important behavioral changes related to the frequency, time and position of breastfeeding, food intake, contact and movements of offspring due to the evolutionary morphophysiological development.