Research Article Effect of Artificial Piglet Suckling Sounds on Behavior and Performance of Piglets and Adrenal Responses of Sows Jaruwan Khonmee, 1,2 Thanat Wathirunwong, 3 Terdsak Yano, 3 Chaleamchat Somgird, 4 Janine L. Brown , 5 and Panuwat Yamsakul 3 1 Department of Veterinary Bioscience and Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50100, Tailand 2 Excellent Center in Veterinary Bioscience, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Tailand 3 Department of Food Animal Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50100, Tailand 4 Department of Companion Animal and Wildlife Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50100, Tailand 5 Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Panuwat Yamsakul; ninunu@gmail.com Received 25 March 2018; Revised 6 August 2018; Accepted 15 August 2018; Published 22 October 2018 Academic Editor: Maria Laura Bacci Copyright © 2018 Jaruwan Khonmee et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Operation of the farrowing house is essential to the productivity of a swine farm, requiring not only good management but also knowledge of the behavior of sows and piglets. Stress can negatively afect production in farm animals and could be a factor in production indexes. Te objective of this study was to investigate the efect of artifcial sucking sounds on the behavior of piglets and fecal glucocorticoid (FGM) concentrations of sows. A total of 30 sows were divided into two groups: a treatment group (15 sows) was exposed to artifcial sucking sounds and a control group (15 sows) was not. Both groups received the same management; the two open-house system locations were separated by a distance of about 270 meters. Te study had three key objectives: to compare farrowing indexes and to observe the sucking behavior of piglets using CCTV cameras. Fecal samples were collected daily for 21 days from the period afer parturition to weaning to assess adrenal activity. Te treatment group had a signifcantly higher average number of times piglets came to a sow’s udder, and sows had a shorter onset time for the frst piglet to come to the sow’s udder than the control group (both P<0.05). Te patterns and levels of FGM between the two groups were not diferent (both P<0.05), but the treatment group had better farrowing indexes than the control group (P>0.05), particularly for litter weight gain and percent preweaning mortality. In addition, the weaning to frst service interval of the treatment group was shorter than the control group (P<0.05). Tis indicates that the artifcial suckling sound probably has no adverse efect on adrenal responses of pig; however, it improves production indexes of postparturition sows. 1. Introduction Good production indexes on a swine farm are dependent on good management in the farrowing house. One factor in that index is the quantity and quality of milk provided to piglets by nursing sows which afects the strength of the piglets and their potential as they mature. Related to that is the milk let-down refex of sows which depends on many diferent hormones, especially prolactin and oxytocin [1–3]. Both of those hormones are stimulated by piglets massaging the udder [4]. Each cycle of milk let down lasts approximately 40 to 60 minutes and begins about 1 to 3 minutes afer massage by a piglet begins [5, 6]. Normally, sounds made by the sow can induce the suck- ling behavior of piglets including massaging the sow’s udder; i.e., sound is important for stimulating suckling behavior of piglets. Kasanen and Alger [7] reported that pulsating sounds made by sows can induce suckling behavior in piglets [4]. If piglets can receive sow’s milk in a higher level, they will be resulting in a better production performances e.g., increased Hindawi Veterinary Medicine International Volume 2018, Article ID 2762153, 7 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/2762153