Ethologic risks of early weaning in pigs]

Regularities of social behaviour in sheep have been studied in large-scale production conditions. Efforts were made to work out an hypothesis and to determine the extent in which the biosocial relation mother-young one represent a limiting factor for animal sociability during their ontogeny. For this purpose, two forms of weaning were defined and compared: lasting 28 days (early) and 10 days (very early). Sociability of animals in a group and indexes of their sociability (IS) were criterions under study. The IS values in the first form of weaning varied within the values 3.24-4.09. An average IS value was mean = 2.68 and the dynamics of social hierarchy of the group was stable on the 8th day of their age (Fig. 1). The IS values varied within 1.21-4.30 in the second form of weaning. Average IS value of animals in the group was mean = 3.55 and the sociability was stable on the 28th day of their age. The study was aimed at analysing the social adaptation, eventually maladaptation as a potential consequence of deprivation resulting from very early weaning of pigs. Fig. 3 shows the results of research in the form of different indexes of sociability between simulated weanings of pigs, form I--2.68 and form II 3.55. The IS difference is significant at the significance level alpha = 0.01 and alpha = 0.05. This fact confirms hypothesis of social maladaptation as a consequence of social deprivation of young animals very early weaned.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)