Better Pork - February 2007

Eye On Europe

A personal ring-tone for sows helps stops bullying

This simple system, say its developers, effectively stops fighting, reduces stress and likely increases performance in loose-housed sows
 
by NORMAN DUNN

Fighting amongst loose-housed sows at feed stations is a thing of the past at one major German research station, where each sow is given its own “mobile phone ring-tone” to signal when her feed is ready.

The automatic feeding system issues a personal jingle which alerts only one sow at a time, and scientists at the Dummerstorf Research Institute for the Biology of Farm Animals (FBN) in northern Germany say that the system is quickly understood and accepted by sows.

“Filmed trials show that other sows remain lying when a tone is sounded that is not theirs,” explains Anselm Schumann, project manager with equipment maker Big Dutchman, which has now taken over the commercial development of the concept. “Not only does this simple system effectively stop dominance fighting at the feed station, it has proven to lower general stress levels amongst the pregnant sows and, we believe, offers significant increases in performance because of this.”

Schumann adds that the development has an important welfare aspect because the different ring-tones keep the sows occupied and alert.

Research is continuing by the system’s developer, Professor Peter-Christian Schön at the FBN, along with Big Dutchman engineers. “For instance, we are now looking into the number and variety of ring-tones that would be feasible. We would like the system to be applicable for large numbers of loose-housed pregnant sows,” comments Anselm Schumann.

Training the sows is proving surprisingly simple. For the first few days, the automatic feeding system for pregnant sow groups is programmed to offer small amounts of feed regularly to all sows. While each sow is feeding, she is played her particular ring-tone. The FBN researchers say that, within two to three days, sows react only to their particular jingle and ignore all the others.

This is the second FBN-developed, audio-related system for managing pig welfare? The company also plans to launch the FBN “STREMODO” (stress monitoring and documentation unit) concept, a computer program that records all pig noises from the livestock barn and analyses them to warn the farmer of stress situations.

STREMODO is active 24 hours a day and also produces a continuous graph of sound levels with the particular pitch of pigs’ stress cries recognized and identified. “Our program, which should be commercially launched in 2007, continually compares the routine noises made by pigs in a unit, including the peaks at feeding times,” explains Schumann.

“When such a routine for a particular barn is broken, perhaps through a partial failure of the feeding or ventilation system, the level and quality of sounds change. Our audio computer system immediately recognizes this and an early warning is passed on to the stockperson through STREMODO.”

New catheter system cuts sow insemination time in half
Results for the Genes Diffusion GEDIS catheter concept have shown that a skilled operator can inseminate large numbers of sows in around half the time compared with conventional systems - and that there is also a slight advantage in increased fertility and numbers born in the resultant litters.

French-based Genes Diffusion, which claims to be the world’s largest swine AI organisation producing three million semen doses per year from 2,200 boars in France, Spain and the United States, has developed a catheter completely different from conventional AI equipment. The GEDIS concept features an amalgamation of a catheter and a semen package. The semen container is no longer a separate bag but is moulded around the actual catheter. The entire catheter/semen container is inserted into the sow at serving.

The semen exit point of the catheter is sealed by wax, which melts with the body heat of the sow. The semen is then automatically drawn out by the natural contractions of the sow without the AI operator having to be in direct attendance. In a U.S. trial, average operator time for insemination with the GEDIS catheter was 1.54 minutes per sow on 545 sows, compared with 2.83 minutes per sow with 542 sows. On a hog unit with 250 matings per week, the operator time saved was estimated at five hours and 22 minutes.

In another U.S. trial reported by Genes Diffusion, 198 servings with the GEDIS system produced 149 litters (75.25 per cent success) with 12.31 piglets born per litter on average. On the same farm, 163 sows were inseminated with a conventional system with 112 litters produced (68.71 per cent ) and an average 11.59 piglets born per litter.

Caption: Genes-Diff-Catheter (subscribers please see February 2007 Issue - page 48)

In the new all-in-one pig AI catheter from Genes Diffusion, the semen pack and catheter form one instrument shaped so that the operator can leave it inside the sow while dealing with other servings. Serving time per sow is effectively halved by the new system.

Danish trials indicate sorting sows leads to bigger litters
When dry sows are loose-housed in the service unit and during subsequent gestation, there’s nearly always a fair amount of bullying and aggression, mostly by the older, heavier and more dominant sows in each group.

Danish researchers believed that this sort of behaviour could be one of the reasons why younger, less dominant ,sows in loose-housed systems often failed to express their full genetic potential in terms of litter size.

To find out more, trials on two commercial specific pathogen free (SPF) Danish hybrid herds compared performances of loose-housed sows, which had been separated according to age and weight during the serving and pregnancy period. “The results showed a significant increase in piglets born per litter to younger sows, which had been kept in groups without older heavier sows,” explains researcher Lisbeth Hansen of the Danish Meat Association.

With just over a thousand litters recorded for separated sows and another thousand from sows kept in a traditional mix of all ages, the separated sows averaged 14.6 piglets born while the ones in mixed groups managed 14.2.

“The results were even better when the performance of the younger sows from the two systems were compared,” adds Ms Hansen. “When mixed with the heavier, more dominant sows, the lighter ones averaged just 14 piglets per litter. When separated, the result was 14.6.”

Sows that had one to three litters were channelled into the small sow groups while those with four litters and more went into the other groups. Over the whole trial, the younger sows averaged 209 kilograms in weight and the older ones 255 kilos. In the first herd, the loose-housed sows were kept in groups of 15 and in the second, groups of 23.

“The larger litters for the younger sows when separated from the older ones could definitely be associated with the reduction of aggression in the pens of separated younger animals,” adds Lisbeth Hansen.

On the first day, recorded “confrontations” between sows were naturally highest in the groups with mixed ages. But while the separated groups of older sows had approximately six per cent fewer confrontations, the groups of younger sows resulted in more than 20 per cent fewer confrontations.

Pig veranda barns are back
Nyborg Huse, the Danish hog barn builder, has reintroduced an old idea that was once popular throughout Europe - the veranda system. In this, each pen in the barn has access to its own outdoor unroofed area or “veranda” where pigs can dung. But the old concept is now coupled to state-of-the-art control of natural ventilation indoors for a cost-efficient system with low odour emission.

The system is not new in Denmark, where Nyborg has been building units since 1992. But very good results from the fresh air approach, even in the freezing Scandinavian winters, have encouraged the company to market the idea abroad and, next year, the first new veranda barn is to be completed on a German hog farm.

Total building costs average $130 Cdn per feeding hog place (0.65 square metres) with no extra costs for ventilation as this is naturally controlled by a system simply based on oil expansion.

What happens is that hydraulic pistons control air intake (floor level) and outlet (roof ridge) flaps. Increased interior air temperature causes the hydraulic liquid to expand and the flaps to open automatically. Decreasing temperatures have the opposite effect.

“The simple design mean our houses cost from five to 10 per cent less than conventional hog barns,” claims Peter Ottosen from Nyborg. “Usually the outdoor verandas are fully slatted with slurry storage below. The interior is usually part-slatted, although we have built some veranda systems for farrowing houses with partly solid flooring indoors.”

Most of the veranda barns so far built in Denmark have been for 1,000 feeding pig places, with a few for 2,000 hogs at a time.

Caption: Veranda hog system 1 and hog system 2
(please see caption in our February 2007 Issue - page 51)

An old design is revived - with modern additions. The veranda system of naturally-ventilated hog housing is once again popular, with 160 veranda barns built in the last years in Denmark and the first coming to Germany in 2007. The veranda outruns are behind the outside walls.  

(manure-burn-drying):
After separation the manure solids are automatically conveyed onto a screen drier, where dry matter is increased to 80 per cent .

(manure-burn –power)
The dried manure is burned, producing gases at 1,100°C used to power a Stirling heat engine for driving a 30 kW/h generator. BP

Source: Danish Meat Association