title: Attitudes of Danish pig farmers towards requirements for hospital pens.
abstract: According to Danish legislation, sick or injured pigs must be housed in hospital pens with specific requirements. During recent years the majority of cases of non-compliance with legislation have been related to management of these animals. Hence, we hypothesized that 1) pig farmers generally find a requirement for hospital pens reasonable, but do not know the specific requirements; 2) pig farmers do not find the specific requirements for hospital pens meaningful compared with their perception of what sick pigs need; and 3) pig farmers often omit to move sick pigs to hospital pens due to lack of time or labour. An on-line questionnaire regarding farmers' attitudes towards and knowledge about legal requirements for hospital pens was constructed and e-mailed to 2348 pig farmers. In total, 508 farmers answered the questionnaire. Overall, 66% of the respondents found that the requirements for hospital pens made good sense, and more than 90% found that it made at least partial sense. Even though almost all respondents thought they knew the legal requirements for specific facilities in hospital pens, in fact 20% of them did not. The majority of respondents found all specific requirements in accordance with the needs of sick pigs, with the exception of cooling (only 17% agreed that cooling was needed). Unexpectedly, lack of time or labour wasn't reported to be a major obstacle to the use of hospital pens. Possibly, different thresholds for defining a pig as 'sick enough' to need housing in a hospital pen may exist between farmers and authorities.
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University, Department of Animal Science, P. O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark. Electronic address: ptt@anis.au.dk.
authors.forename: Peter T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Thomsen
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Environment and Food, The Danish AgriFish Agency, Center for Agriculture, Nyropsgade 30, DK-1780 Copenhagen V, Denmark.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Klottrup
authors.affiliation: Danish Pig Research Centre, Axeltorv 3, DK-1609 Copenhagen V, Denmark.
authors.forename: Henriette
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Steinmetz
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University, Department of Animal Science, P. O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark.
authors.forename: Mette S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Herskin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D003718:Denmark; D000067565:Farmers / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D034421:Sus scrofa
keywords: Animal welfare; Hospital pen; Legislation; Pig; Questionnaire