IA State Univ. Report 2012: Location of Nursery Pigs in Relation to a Human Observer

The objective of this experiment was to determine pigs’ location in their home pen in relation to an unknown female observer. A total of 79 pens housing 1,817 ~6 wk old mixed sexed nursery pigs were used. An approachability test defined by Fangman et al. (2010) was used. The length of the nursery pen was measured with the Adobe Photoshop ruler tool from the pen gate located directly behind the midpoint of the observer’s back (defined as the dorsal medial point) to the opposite end of the pen 20 cm from the floor.