Standard Operating Procedures for Better Pig Research (SOPig): Recommendations from the PIGWEB Collaboration

Pig research is facing a growing demand for robust, reproducible, and welfare-conscious data, which promotes increases in collaboration among researchers worldwide to improve research quality. At the heart of this effort lies standardisation—ensuring that experimental procedures are consistent, transparent, and aligned with best practices.

This Open Access book presents the outcome of a major initiative within the EU Horizon 2020 PIGWEB project, where multiple experts working at institutions throughout Europe collaborated on a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for commonly used methods in pig research. Each SOP is a step-by-step guide, detailing recommended materials, equipment, and procedures, while emphasising refinements and non-invasive alternatives in line with the 3R principles of Replacement, Reduction and Refinement.

Covering a wide range of disciplines in animal science, the book includes protocols for:
-    Blood, urine and saliva sampling for metabolic and hormonal analysis
-    Faeces collection for digestibility studies
-    Thermographic and spectroscopic methods for physiological assessments
-    Imaging techniques for determining body and carcass composition

With its easy-to-follow format, comprehensive illustrations, example data collection and analysis spreadsheets and practical recommendations, this book serves as both a learning resource and a reference tool for researchers, technicians, and students. By promoting harmonised procedures across facilities, it supports data comparability, animal welfare, and the advancement of pig research globally. Whether setting up a new experiment or striving for reproducibility in collaborative projects, this book is an essential guide to standardised, ethical, and innovative pig research.

Dr. Liza R. Moscovice is a behavioral endocrinologist, whose research focuses on using non-invasive behavioral and physiological measures to assess social relationships and emotions in animals. Since 2019, she has worked at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), where she studies mechanisms mediating prosocial behavior in pigs. 

Dr. Sandra Düpjan is a behavioral biologist working in farm animal welfare research for over 20 years. Her main research focus is on behavioral indicators of pig welfare, taking into account emotion, cognition and physiology.  

Dr. Marion Girard is an animal nutritionist whose research also integrates aspects of physiology, health, feed formulation and product quality assessment. Since 2016, she has been working at Agroscope on feeding strategies to strengthen the intestinal health and survival of piglets, either directly or indirectly through maternal nutrition and nutrient transfer in sow's milk.

Dr. Rebecka Westin is a veterinarian and scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Her research focus on housing environment and its effect on health, behaviour and welfare in pigs. She has also conducted several studies on maternal behaviour and management around farrowing in loose housed sows.