Behavioral response of weaned pigs during gas euthanasia with CO2, CO2 with butorphanol, or nitrous oxide
Çavusoglu, Enver | Rault, Jean-Loup | Gates, Richard | Lay, Donald C. Jr
The swine industry is forced to euthanize pigs in the first few weeks of life due to injuries, hernias or unthriftiness. The majority of pigs are euthanized using CO2 gas asphyxiation. However, concerns as to the humaneness of CO2 are prevalent. This study compared euthanasia of neonatal pigs using N2O (n = 9) or CO2 (n = 9). In addition, we administered an analgesic prior to CO2 (CO2B) as a third treatment (n = 9) to elucidate behaviors indicative of pain. The CO2 and N2O pigs lost posture at similar times (latency of 145.0 ± 17.3 and 162.6 ± 7.0 s respectively, P > 0.10), while the CO2B pigs lost posture the soonest (101.2 ± 4.7 s, P < 0.01). The CO2B pigs had more escape attempts than the CO2 or N2O pigs (16.4 ± 4.2, 4.7 ± 1.6, 0.3 ± 0.2 respectively; P < 0.0004). However, the N2O pigs performed more squeals than either the CO2 or CO2B pigs (9.0 ± 1.6, 2.8 ± 1.2, 1.3 ± 0.6 respectively, P < 0.001).Given similar time to loss of posture, the shorter time displaying open mouth breathing indicates that N2O is less stressful; however, the greater number of squeals for these pigs suggests the opposite. It was not apparent that any behavior measured was indicative of pain. In conclusion, N2O in higher flow rate can be an alternative of CO2 for pig euthanasia.
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