Supplemental data: Variations in salivary oxytocin and eye caruncle temperature indicate valuing of environmental enrichment material in fattening pigs

This document provides supplemental data and respective R script to the manuscript "Variations in salivary oxytocin and eye caruncle temperature indicate valuing of environmental enrichment material in fattening pigs" submitted to the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science on January 11, 2023.

The study reports an experimental study exploring the potential of physiological and behavioral measures to non-invasively detect valuing responses to environmental enrichment in fattening pigs. Our results illustrate that lachrymal caruncle temperature, measured by infrared thermography, salivary oxytocin, and play behavior can vary in response to short-term changes to provision of fresh straw. This study represents a step toward the development of non-invasive measures to investigate anticipation and, consequently, affective states in pigs and the progress of the study of animal emotions.

The experimental procedures were carried out in accordance with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration under act 474 of 15. May 2014 and executive order 2028 of 14. December 2020, and under consideration of the ARRIVE Guidelines (Du Sert et al., 2020). The study was developed as part of project PIGWEB funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101004770.