Research conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc has found the cost of converting barns for housing gestating sows from stall housing to group housing to be substantially lower than originally projected.
To assist pork producers in planning for the conversion of existing stall housing systems for gestating sows to group housing researchers tracked and documented barn conversions across Canada and is making that information available to producers at groupsowhousing.com.
Dr. Jenifer Brown, a research Scientist Ethology with the Prairie Swine Centre, says 12 conversions were tracked across Canada.
Dr. Jenifer Brown-Prairie Swine Centre:
Certainly there was a lot of speculation on what the cost of these renovations would be and what we found was that the cost per sow was lower than what was actually projected.
Certainly it does depend on how much concrete work has to be done or if you need to do a full renovation, stripping down the walls and altering your ventilation and those sorts of things.
In most cases farms did a minimal amount of concrete work.
Source : Farmscape