Personality types and teat order in piglets
Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: To investigate whether piglets show different personality types due to teat position, a number ofexperiments were performed on 21 different litters, 9 to 31 days old. The tests included threefocal piglets in each litter with different teat position, anterior, middle and posterior, inobservations on suckling behaviour, undisturbed behaviours, a novel object test and a straw-testwhere thirteen behaviours were observed. The tests found an effect on teat position on frequencyof disputes between piglets during suckling and their teat position (P=0.018) and a tendency ofdifference in undisturbed playing behaviour between piglets at different teat position (P=0.057).All tests found differences between litters concerning behaviours. With a Principal componentanalysis, the four personality types curiosity, playful, food interest and straw interest wasestablished. No effect between different teat positions and personality type were found, but atendency of difference between personality trait playful and different teat positions (P=0.062). Inconclusion: no significant differences between teat position and personality type in piglets couldbe established.
Author: Malin Svensson
Language: English
Subfield: Animal Science and Zoology
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W608269394