Suchergebnisse

When Jacqueline moves to south-west France with her husband, she embraces rural village life and buys two pigs to rear for slaughter. But as she gets to know the animals better, her English sentimentality threatens to get in the way and she begins to wonder if she can actually bring herself to kill them. This is a memoir about that fateful decision, but it's also about the ethics of meat eating in the modern age, and whether we should know, respect and even love the animals we eat. At its heart, this book is a love story, exploring the increasing attachment of the author for her particular pigs, and celebrating the enduring closeness of humans and pigs over the centuries

Making American gehography -- Hogs at home on the range -- Working people's food -- Pigs and the urban slop bucket -- To market, to market -- Swine plagues -- Making bacon and white meat -- Science and the swineherd -- Coda: the future of hogs in America

Advances in Pig Welfare analyses current topical issues in the key areas of pig welfare assessment and improvement. With coverage of both recent developments and reviews of historical welfare issues, the volume provides a comprehensive survey of the field. The book is divided into two sections. Part I opens with an overview of main welfare challenges in commercial pig production systems and then reviews pig welfare hot spots from birth to slaughter. Part II highlights emerging topics in pig welfare, such as pain and health assessment, early socialisation and environmental enrichment, pig-human interactions, breeding for welfare, positive pig welfare and pigs as laboratory animals. This book is an essential part of the wider ranging series Advances in Farm Animal Welfare, with coverage of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry. With its expert editor and international team of contributors, Advances in Pig Welfare is a key reference tool for welfare research scientists and students, veterinarians involved in welfare assessment, and indeed anyone with a professional interest in the welfare of pigs

The Ribatejano (RI) pig productive performance, resulting from a cross between Alentejano (AL) and Bísaro (BI) breeds, was assessed within the framework of the TREASURE* project. Nine castrated male pigs from each genotype (AL, BI, ALxBI and BIxAL) were studied. Animals were raised in traditional free-range system, individually fed with commercial diets ad libitum, and slaughtered at ~150 kg live weight (LW). No significant (P>0.05) differences were observed between genotypes on the average daily gain. Overall, carcass length, and head and bone cuts percentages (P<0.001) were higher in BI than AL pigs, with intermediate values for both crosses. Carcass yield (P<0.01) was lower in BI and BIxAL, while commercial yield percentage (P<0.05) was lower in AL and ALxBI genotypes. Conversely, fat cuts percentage, average backfat thickness and ZP fat depth (P<0.001) were higher in AL than in BI, ALxBI and BIxAL pigs. At ~150 kg LW, RI crosses presented generally intermediate characteristics between the fatter (AL) and leaner (BI) genotypes. These trends were already observed in a previous work where these genotypes were slaughtered at ~65 kg LW (Martins et al. 2017). Therefore, this cross can be an alternative to the use of other breeds for crossing, and increase the income of local pig producers in a sustainable way, mitigate the exodus of rural population, and also preserve the pure breed pig populations, contributing to animal biodiversity. Martins J.M., Neves J., Serrano A., Abecasis I., Albuquerque A., Freitas A., Nunes J.T. & Charneca R. (2017) The Ribatejano pig: Rebirth of a local population? First results on growth, and carcass parameters. Archivos de Zootecnia in press. *This work has been made in the scope of Treasure project. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 634476 (Project acronym: TREASURE). The content of this paper reflects only the author's view and the European Union Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Trade liberalisation affects the pattern and structure of agricultural production, with consequences for the environment. But what are these impacts? And do agri-environmental policies affect international competitiveness? This study takes an in-depth look at the pig sector in OECD countries and draws some conclusions about the most appropriate forms of policy intervention