The Manager of Quality Assurance and Animal Care Programs with Manitoba Pork says the more robust the design of the group sow housing system, the fewer problems the producer will have to overcome through management.
"Impact of Loose Sow Housing on Production" was discussed last week as part of the 2018 Manitoba Swine Seminar.
Mark Fynn, the Manager of Quality Assurance and Animal Care Programs with Manitoba Pork, says there are 72 or more possible configurations when designing a group sow housing system and, while there's no one standard configuration, the main goal is to minimize aggression and maximize productivity.
Mark Fynn-Manitoba Pork:
The main factors of productivity that we're really focusing on, a lot has to do with reproduction and making sure that we're achieving good rates of reproduction, making sure we're minimizing the stress on animals during the critical periods so that we're maintaining a healthy pregnancy for those sows, making sure they're getting the nutrition and the amount of feed they need to be able to support those pregnancies.
Really when we're looking at the systems that we're designing and the management practices we put in place, all of it revolves around making sure we support that pregnancy and have good reproduction from that.
Source : Farmscape