Evaluation of environmental enrichment on productive and behavioral responses of finishing pigs

Productive and behavioral responses of finishing pigs with and without access to environmental enrichment (EE) were evaluated. A total of 432 pigs, male and female, Hampshire line, initial and final weight of 22–27 kg and 110–125 kg, respectively, were studied for 112 days. The study design was in random blocks, with 6 treatments, distributed in a factorial scheme 2 × 3 (sex × treatment) and 12 repetitions/treatment, totalling 72 pens. The animals were weighed and distributed in 3 blocks—light (20.3 to 24.8 kg), medium weight (24.8 to 27.7 kg), and heavy (27.7 to 33.8 kg). The treatments were as follows: branched chains for males (T 1 ); branched sisal ropes for males (T 2 ), males without EE (T 3 ); branched chains for females (T 4 ); branched sisal ropes for females (T 5 ) and females without EA (T 6 ). There was no effect ( P > 0.05) of interaction (enrichment × sex) and sex on performance. Daily consumption and daily weight gain were lower ( P 0.05) between treatments under study. There was no interaction between gender and enrichment for behavioral responses ( P = 0.8986). However, there was an environmental enrichment ( P = 0.0017; P