Kyle Moak's MSc Defence

The welfare of pigs during transport depends on many factors, but trailer design plays a key role in transport-related stress. Pot-belly trailers are commonly used for swine transportation in Canada but are criticized because of steep internal ramps causing difficulties during loading/unloading, and poor internal microclimate conditions. This results in a greater proportion of dead-on-arrivals and fatigued pigs compared to trailers using flat-deck designs. The objective of this study was to compare a standard pot-belly trailer to two novel trailer designs, both featuring fan-assisted ventilation and water misting (MPB and AFD) and one featuring flat-decks (AFD). Only a few modest differences were observed between pigs transported with different trailers, suggesting that loading pigs using a trailer with a flat deck design compared to trailers with standard ramp designs did not reduce loading stress, and trailers featuring fan-assisted ventilation and water misting did not effectively cool pigs during summer transits.