Evaluation de l’attractivité d’une balle de luzerne et de son efficacité pour prévenir et interrompre des épisodes de caudophagie en post-sevrage

La caudophagie est un phénomène récurrent en élevage de porcs, dont un des facteurs de risque est un défaut d’enrichissement dans les cases. Les matériaux les plus attractifs et les plus efficaces pour prévenir ou freiner les morsures sont par exemple les fourrages ou la paille. La solution testée dans cette étude vise à apporter de la luzerne déshydratée, sous forme compressée dans un râtelier, pour limiter les pertes directes à travers les caillebotis et interrompre des épisodes de caudophagie en post-sevrage.

Evaluation of the attractiveness of a lucerne ball and its effectiveness in preventing or interrupting post-weaning tail-biting episodes

An experiment was conducted to assess the attractiveness of a high-density dehydrated lucerne ball weighing 20 kg (referred to as BL) and its effectiveness in preventing or interrupting episodes of tail biting. The experiment took place in two post-weaning batch, each consisting of 16 pens with 10 pigs each. The experiment followed a 2 × 2 factorial design based on the type of enrichment (BL (treatment CL) or a suboptimal object commonly used on farms (a chew disc made from compressed organic material, treatment CS)) and the length of the tail (full (QE) or docked (QC)). To test the effectiveness of BL in interrupting a tail-biting episode, an intervention was added to the CS treatment if tail biting occurred: the addition of enrichment in the form of either BL or a natural material rope. An analysis of variance showed no significant difference in zootechnical performance between the CL and CS treatments. BL was significantly more attractive than the discs and chains provided. Of the nine episodes of tail-biting, eight occurred in the CS treatment and only one in the CL treatment. BL were added to four CS boxes to interrupt episodes of tail-biting. These episodes stopped systematically whereas with a string, there was a 75% success. BL appears to be an interesting enrichment material for preventing and interrupting tail-biting episodes, and further experiments should be conducted to validate this hypothesis.