Behavioural responses of piglets to different types of music

Music or other background sounds are often played in barns as environmental enrichment for animals on farms or to mask sudden disruptive noises. Previous studies looking at the effects of this practice on non-human animal well-being and productivity have found contradictory results. However, there i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animal (Cambridge, England) England), 2019-10, Vol.13 (10), p.2319-2326
Main Authors: Li, X., Zhao, J. N., Zhao, P., Zhang, X., Bi, Y. J., Li, J. H., Liu, H. G., Wang, C., Bao, J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Animals
Barns
Behavior, Animal
behavioural reaction
Classical music
Compliance
Enrichment
Experiments
Exploration
Exploratory behavior
Farm buildings
Farms
Feeds
growing pigs
Hogs
Humans
Humidity
Laboratory animals
Male
Music
music rhythm
musical instrument
Musical instruments
preference
Research Article
Stress
String music
Strings
Studies
Swine
Swine - growth & development
Swine - physiology
Walking
Welfare, Behaviour and Health Management
Well being
Wind
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Summary:Music or other background sounds are often played in barns as environmental enrichment for animals on farms or to mask sudden disruptive noises. Previous studies looking at the effects of this practice on non-human animal well-being and productivity have found contradictory results. However, there is still a lack of discussion on whether piglets have the ability to distinguish different types of music. In this study, we exposed piglets to different music conditions to investigate whether the piglets preferred certain music types, in which case those types would have the potential to be used as environmental enrichment. In total, 30 piglets were tested for music type preference to determine whether growing pigs respond differently to different types of music. We used music from two families of instruments (S: string, W: wind) and with two tempos (S: slow, 65 beats/min (bpm); F: fast, 200 bpm), providing four music-type combinations (SS: string-slow; SF: string-fast; WS: wind-slow; WF: wind-fast). The piglets were given a choice between two chambers, one with no music and the other with one of the four types of music, and their behaviour was observed. The results showed that SS and WF music significantly increased residence time (P
ISSN:1751-7311
1751-732X
DOI:10.1017/S1751731119000260