Merley, A. L., Duke Boynton, F. D. 2021. Design and construction of a low-cost mirror for enrichment of socially isolated pigs. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(5) (September/October), 56-57.

Due to their social needs, every effort should be made to house pigs with compatible conspecifics; however, there may be instances where due to experimental or veterinary concerns, single housing is necessary. In those situations, sensory contact with other pigs or if isolated additional enrichment should be provided. One type of item that has been utilized for pig enrichment are mirrors. In testing their preference between enrichment items (conspecific, mirror, mat) with humans present, isolated pigs preferred the conspecific and mirror equally. The authors interpreted this behavior as the mirror providing social support when a perceived threat is present. Based on these results, our institution decided to implement mirror use for our socially isolated pigs. The main considerations were the cost, ease of placement within the pen to accommodate the pigs’ near-sightedness, and the product's durability to ensure safety of the animals. Large enrichment mirrors are available through select vendors but were not cost effective to implement at our large institution. To implement mirrors on a wide scale in our facility, we purpose-built them out of mirrored acrylic. The design made it easy to build several mirrors for a low-cost. Given their durability, we have been able to reuse them and easily move mirrors between pens.