Piglets develop drinking habits in the first few days after weaning. Increasing access to water for nursery pigs can impact growth, health, welfare and overall profits. The purpose of this study was to determine how having 1, 2 or 3 drinkers per pen affects the number of times nursery pigs drink, the length of time they drink, and the positive interactions they have near the drinker area on placement days. 150 crossbred gilts (weaned at 21±4 days old) with a body weight of 5.38±2.65 kg were distributed into pens according to their weight, with 25 pigs in each pen. There are 6 pig pens in total, and each treatment contains 2 pig pens. Each pen contains 1, 2 or 3 stainless steel nipple drinkers. Four metrics were collected: the number and duration of visits to the waterer (starting when the nursery pig's head enters the waterer and stopping when the pig's head moves out of the waterer for 5 seconds or more), and visits to the waterer near the waterer. The number and duration of aggressive interactions (defined as any fighting, bullying, head-butting, or chasing that occurred within a radius of 0.61 meters or less from the edge of the drinking fountain).
The total number of visits and visit duration to nipple drinkers was the largest in treatment group 2 (2 drinkers per column, 1894±289 visits, 21413±6236 seconds), and the lowest in treatment group 1 (1 drinker per column) Drinking fountain, visited 1129±88 times, visited for 13277±1117 seconds). Pigs in the treatment pen with 3 drinkers had the lowest total number of aggressive interactions (676 ± 269 times) and the shortest duration (4614 ± 1912 seconds) near the waterers.


Providing multi-nipple drinkers improves the welfare of nursery pigs at weaning day by providing more frequent and longer drinking while reducing aggressive behavior near water sources.