Navarro Elena, Guevara Raúl David, Mainau Eva, de Miguel Ricardo, Manteca Xavier
Department of Animal and Food Science, School of Veterinary Science, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain.
AWEC Advisors SL, Ed. Eureka, Parc de Recerca UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain.
Animals (Basel). 2025 Jul 28;15(15):2225. doi: 10.3390/ani15152225.
Parturition is accepted as a painful situation. Few studies explore pain-specific behaviours during farrowing in sows. The objectives of this study were, first, to assess if behavioural pain indicators (BPIs) are affected by the farrowing moment, parity, and suckling events, and second, to determine the relationship between the Facial Action Units (FAUs) and BPIs during farrowing. Ten Danbred sows were recorded throughout farrowing and on day 19 post-farrowing. Continuous observations of five BPIs and five FAUs were obtained across the three moments studied: (i) at the expulsion of the piglets, (ii) the time interval between the delivery of each piglet, and (iii) 19 days after farrowing, used as a control. Primiparous sows had more BPIs but fewer postural changes than multiparous sows. The BPIs were more frequent during suckling events in the pre-weaning moment. All the FAUs and BPIs were rare or absent post-farrowing ( < 0.05), and almost all of them were more frequent during farrowing (especially at the moment of delivery). Back arching showed the highest correlation with all the FAUs, and tension above the eyes showed the highest correlation with four of the BPIs. The BPIs and FAUs indicate that sows experience more pain during farrowing than during the third week post-farrowing, and piglet expulsion is the most painful moment in farrowing.
分娩被认为是一种痛苦的情况。很少有研究探讨母猪分娩时特定于疼痛的行为。本研究的目的，一是评估行为疼痛指标（BPIs）是否受分娩时刻、胎次和哺乳事件的影响，二是确定分娩期间面部动作单元（FAUs）与BPIs之间的关系。在整个分娩过程以及分娩后第19天对10头丹系母猪进行了记录。在研究的三个时刻对五个BPIs和五个FAUs进行了连续观察：（i）仔猪排出时，（ii）每头仔猪分娩之间的时间间隔，以及（iii）分娩后19天，用作对照。初产母猪的BPIs更多，但姿势变化比经产母猪少。在断奶前的哺乳期间，BPIs更频繁。所有FAUs和BPIs在分娩后都很少见或不存在（<0.05），并且几乎所有这些在分娩期间（尤其是分娩时）更频繁。背部拱起与所有FAUs的相关性最高，眼睛上方的紧张与四个BPIs的相关性最高。BPIs和FAUs表明母猪在分娩期间比分娩后第三周经历更多疼痛，并且仔猪排出是分娩中最痛苦的时刻。
