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Measuring piglet castration pain using linear and non-linear measures of heart rate variability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

CJ Byrd ,
JS Radcliffe ,
BA Craig ,
SD Eicher  and
DC Lay Jr
CJ Byrd*
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Sciences, North Dakota State University, Dept 7630, PO Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108, USA Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
JS Radcliffe
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
BA Craig
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
SD Eicher
Affiliation:
USDA-ARS Livestock Behavior Research Unit, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
DC Lay Jr
Affiliation:
USDA-ARS Livestock Behavior Research Unit, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
*
* Contact for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether linear and non-linear measures of heart rate variability (HRV) could be used as indicators of piglet castration pain. Thirty piglets were allocated to 1 of 4 treatments: i) sham castrated HRV (SHRV; n = 8); ii) surgical castrated HRV (CHRV; n = 7); iii) sham castrated blood collection (SBC; n = 7); or iv) surgical castrated blood collection (CBC; n = 8). Piglets in the SHRV and CHRV treatment groups underwent a 1-h HRV and postural behaviour evaluation on day-1, day 0 (castration treatment), day 1 and day 3 of the experimental procedure. Piglets in the SBC and CBC groups underwent blood collection for serum cortisol analysis at -0.5, 1, 2, 3, 24, 48 and 72 h relative to castration treatment. Castrated piglets (CHRV) exhibited greater low to high frequency ratio, lower sample entropy and greater percent determinism compared to SHRV piglets, indicating greater pain-related stress due to the surgical castration procedure. Serum cortisol was greater in CBC pigs at 1 h post-castration compared to SBC piglets. No effect of treatment was found for amount of time spent lying post-castration. In conclusion, surgically castrated pigs exhibited greater pain-related stress than their sham castrated counterparts. Additionally, non-linear HRV measures seem to complement traditional linear HRV measures and may be valuable for assessing pain-related stress in future studies investigating swine welfare.

Keywords

animal welfarecastrationheart rate variabilitypainpigletstress
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 257 - 269
Copyright
© 2020 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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