By Bruce Cochrane.
A Research Scientist Ethology with the Prairie Swine Centre reports interest in the newer hydraulic trailer designs is increasing across Canada.
As part of research being conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc aimed at automating the cleaning and disinfection of swine transport equipment to improve transport biosecurity the Prairie Swine Centre has evaluated the cleanability and animal welfare implications of swine transport trailers.
Dr. Jennifer Brown, a Research Scientist Ethology with the Prairie Swine Centre, says, considering the various trailer types and the large number of options available, there's a very wide variety of overall trailer designs.
Dr. Jennifer Brown-Prairie Swine Centre:
Looking at those pot-belly trailers, those certainly are the most common design but they're also one of the most difficult in terms of moving pigs because of the number of ramps and the angle of ramps.
They have internal ramps instead of external ramps.
Certainly the hydraulic trailers have tried to address a lot of those issues.
The pigs don't actually have to climb any ramps.
They can just go straight onto a flat deck and then that deck is raised higher and the next level is loaded.
Those trailers certainly do have some nice advantages in terms of animal handling and then also they're easier to clean in some ways.
But again there's some disadvantages of those hydraulic trailers because they're more expensive and also heavier on the roads so more fuel is needed to get them to their destinations.
Dr. Brown says there's a great deal of interest in these hydraulic trailer and alternative trailer designs that are going to result in easier cleaning and easier handling of pigs.
She says these hydraulic trailers are easier for truckers to use and we're seeing these designs being brought into eastern Canada and now some studies have been done in western Canada.
Source: Farmscape