The piglet's behavior after birth according to the birth weight

The aim of the work was the piglet's behaviour observation till the fourteenth day after birth. We expected some differences in behaviour between animal groups according to their birth weight. Thirty-five animals from five litters were included in the experiment. We divided the animals into two groups according to their birth weight: in the first group there were piglets with their birth weight over 1.45 kg; in the second group piglets with their birth weight to 1.35 kg were observed. In ethological observations we watched sleep, sucking and locomotion activity. Piglets from the first group slept longer during first three days after their birth. These piglets thus slept generally longer. We noticed more intensive sleeping of piglets from the second group from the eight day to the tenth day of life. The sucking goes down rapidly from the first to the fourth day of life. An equalization of sucking with small decreases and increases comes from the seventh day to the end of observation. By the birth weight, piglets from the first group sucked less until their seventh day. The locomotion of piglets from first group gradually decreased till the fourth day; they moved the most on the fifth day. The locomotion of piglets from second group increased slightly from the fourth to the ninth day.