Improving worker safety and pig welfare in commercial pig production
VanHeeswijk, Heather
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121295
Description
Title
Improving worker safety and pig welfare in commercial pig production
Author(s)
VanHeeswijk, Heather
Issue Date
2023-07-19
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Producers must consider management decisions that impact the welfare of their pigs and safety for their workers, but some procedures may lack investigative support that considers all entities involved. The work presented in this thesis applied a OneHealth approach utilizing systems thinking to simultaneously consider impacts of management decisions on outcomes for workers, pigs, and other factors in the system. Two studies were conducted to evaluate management decisions on breeding farms and identify caretaker perceptions about receiving educational materials.
The first study explored application of intervention procedures during farrowing, specifically farrow assistance (FA), to enhance pig survival, by investigating three FA intervals commonly used on farms (FA every 20-min since last liveborn piglet; FA every 40-min; and FA every hour) and evaluating impacts on pigs and safety of workers. The results indicate that, while there is merit to regularly observing the sows during farrowing, more frequent farrow assistance did not yield better outcomes. A suggested alternative strategy may utilize an observation-based approach with specific cues to trigger an assistance event instead of a timer.
The second study implemented two different communication channels, posters in the workplace and digital messages to personal devices, to investigate worker perception about delivery methods to inform and remind workers about safety and health for themselves and the pigs in their daily work on commercial pig farms. The results revealed that employees are open to learning about farm procedures outside of work hours, and informative messages delivered to personal devices may offer an opportunity to extend support to the most vulnerable populations.
Both of these studies evaluated certain areas within pig production to enhance safety and welfare, and the approaches applied in these studies should be applied to future studies designed for on-farm decision farm support. Based on the outcomes of these studies, producers should systematically evaluate outcomes on their pigs and employees when considering management strategies for their farms.
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