My name is Susan Jarvis and today I'd like to talk to you about some of the welfare issues surrounding the keeping of pigs for meat production. Around the world there are differing attitudes towards the keeping of pigs for meat production.And this is due to various and different cultural beliefs. However, there are around 1 billion pigs produced globally. And therefore, it's imperative that we consider their welfare. There's a large population of pigs within the EU and the USA. But actually, nearly half of the world's population are produced in China, and this is also a growing market. So this short presentation will consider the main welfareissues for the pregnant and lactating sow, and for piglets during the first few weeks of their lives. So let's take a look at the pig production cycle and highlight the main stages that we'll consider. So if we begin with the mating or service of the sow, she's then pregnant for around 115 days. And this is known as the gestation period. The sow then gives birth or farrows. She then feeds the piglets, known as the lactation period. The piglets are then weaned, which is when the piglets are removed from the sow and moved on to solid food only. Following weaning, the sows will come back into heat, or oestrus, and will then be mated again to become pregnant with the next litter. Following weaning, the piglets will grow and then be finished for meat production. Pregnancy is an extremely important time for the sow and her developing piglets. Management has to ensure that the sow receives sufficient nutrition for herself and also to maintain her pregnancy. There's growing evidence in humans that stress during pregnancy can have long-term detrimental effects on her offspring, such as loss of pregnancy, low birth weight, poor development of the fetus, and also issues later in life, such as learning difficulties, diabetes type 2, chronic heart disease, and also a greater predisposition to anxiety and depression. There's also growing evidence in non-human animals, including work carried out here in Edinburgh on pigs, show that stress during pregnancy can have long-term negative impacts on the welfare of the offspring. Therefore, it's incredibly important that we consider the well-being of sows during pregnancy for herself and also for her developing piglets. So I'd like to talk about two main stressors that sows experience during pregnancy. The first is housing. Sows are predominantly kept in gestation stalls. These are individual stalls in which the feeder and drinker are placed at the front. Normally, these have slotted floors so that cleaning is minimal. The restriction over the gestation period along with food restriction, which we'll talk about later, can lead to the development of stereotypies, such as bar biting and chain chewing, as can be seen in this video. Within the EU, gestation stalls are no longer used for the majority of pregnancy. And this has been as of the 1st of January, 2013. However, gestation stalls are the predominant system used for pregnancies globally. As such, within the EU, we now have to group house sows during pregnancy and they have space for movement. However, there are welfare concerns with group housing. When sows are mixed into new groups, this can lead to aggression and damage to the sows while they sort out their dominance hierarchy. The next video clip will show you a group of young female sows who've just been recently mixed into a new group. Research here in Edinburgh have shown that when we mix pregnant sows into new groups, this leads to aggression and can cause damage to the sows in the form of scratches or skin lesions. If we quantify these skin lesions, we can use this as a proxy measure of the level of aggressiveness that has occurred during the mixing event. This graph shows a large increase in the number of skin lesions of sows that have been mixed into new groups during pregnancy, compared to those sows that have not been mixed. Therefore, it's important to minimize social mixing during pregnancy of sows and to manage the system using stable groups wherever possible. This not only has positive implications for the welfare of the sow, but also minimizes the negative impacts of stress during pregnancy on the developing piglets. The other stressor during pregnancy that I'd like to consider is hunger. There's been considerable genetic selection for increased litter size and for rapid growth rate. As a consequence, piglets have the potential to grow very fast. As they share half of their genes with their mother, she too has the potential to grow fast. But to be able to reproduce, her growth has to be restricted. Therefore, sows are feed restricted during pregnancy to prevent rapid growth of the sow. She's fed enough to maintain her litter and a body weight suitable for reproduction. This raises the issue of hunger in pregnant sows. Some work has looked at maintaining the energy levels of diets, but increasing the bulkiness of the diet to minimize the feeling of hunger. In fact, within the EU, sow diets now have to contain fiber or sows have to be given access to fiber sources. In addition, sows are normally fed their daily ration once a day. They normally eat this ration within a few minutes and then have to wait a further 24 hours before they're fed again. The anticipation of the delivery of this ration can lead to high states of arousal and high levels of vocalization. In addition to hunger and housing, there are other welfare issues that we need to consider for the pregnant sow, such as utter and uterine infections, and also painful experiences such as lameness. However, I hope you've seen that we need to consider the management of the pregnant sow and to minimize stress to not only improve her welfare, but also the welfare of her piglets in the longer term.