The hot summer months are upon us, and a team at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and university scientists recently announced a new smartphone application, HotHog, to help predict heat stress in pigs.
Utilizing local weather data, the app predicts relative comfort or heat stress levels of pigs on an hourly, daily or weekly basis, says the release. Swine producers may then use this information to determine the pigs’ needs, including the adjustment of ventilation rates, utilizing sprinklers and ensuring free access to abundant, cool water.
Heat stress in pigs costs the U.S. swine industry an estimated $481 million in revenue losses each year, notes the release, while Jay S. Johnson, animal scientist who leads the ARS’s Livestock Behavior Research Unit in West Lafayette, Ind., says ensuring positive welfare and productivity in pigs will be even more critical in the face of global climate change.
While pigs under heat stress may start to eat less, grow slower, produce less lean muscle, produce less milk and experience other health, productivity or fertility problems, the release explains, gestating sows are among the swine herd’s most vulnerable members—with the increased possibility of birthing fewer and smaller piglets, or stressing in utero piglets causing greater risk of health and other complications in their postnatal life while under heat stress.
HotHog is the first decision-support tool of its kind to predict thermal stress based on behavioral and physiological data collected from heat-load studies of swine, specifically non-pregnant breeding females and mid- and late-gestation sows, according to the developers.
“Additionally, many thermal indices currently in use were originally developed for use in non-swine species and may not accurately predict thermal comfort and stress in pigs,” Johnson says, in the release.
The HotHog app was developed, tested and released with collaborators from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana; and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Educationin Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The app provides producers the ability to choose their geographic user locations, which then populates temperature forecasts and included recommendations to ensure sow comfort.
Further updates of the HotHog app include Spanish translation, thermal predictions for boars, nursery pigs and growing-finishing pigs. The app is now available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
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