Abstract:
Swine stockmanship is an area of animal science that is not often taught to undergraduate students, though a large number of these students take jobs that involve working with pigs or involve managing people that work with pigs. Recent research has shown the importance of positive swine stockmanship in production settings. For three semesters, a total of eight sections (118 junior and senior students) were given a 90-minute laboratory on swine stockmanship. The lab was organized with a brief introduction using quotes about stockmanship; a minilecture reviewing the applicable research; a series of activities on pig handling, pig restraint, injections, flight zone. etc., and a role-playing exercise where the students put themselves in the roles of producer and pig. Students evaluated the relevance and importance of the lab and the methods used. The students gave the lab a rating of 4.46 (on a 5-point scale) for relevance and importance and 4.35 (on a 5- point scale) for innovation in teaching methods. Ninety-four percent of the students gave the lab a "4" or "5" score in these two areas. The mini-lecture and live-pig segments were ranked higher (about 4.4) than non-pig segments (about 3.6).
Keywords:
swine stockmanship, undergraduates, laboratory approach
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