Better Pork - August 2016

11 / 40

MAINFEATURE
A Solution that is:
• Developed by pig breeders
for pig breeders
• User friendly
• Most reliable system of it’s kind
• Utilizing the most advanced
pig-farming technologies available
Enabling maximum
productivity & profitability
With the Nedap Electronic Sow Feeding System
you can create proper sow routing!
Non aggressive sow behaviour
Aggressive sow behaviour
ARIS-AD-HP-better pork-July 2016-Grp Sow.qxp_Layout 1 2016-07-07 3:11 PM Page 1
meetings, conferences, consultations
and a website stocked with research
are all part of the program she de-
veloped along with former Ontario
swine specialist Doug Richards. Her
continuing research at the University
of Saskatchewan explores sow hous-
ing strategies and related technol-
ogy, particularly electronic feeding
systems.
Brown advocates large groups for
gestating sows. It’s not the only ap-
proach, but large groups help relieve
social pressure that arises over feed in
some group situations.
“If you put them in large groups,
like 50 or more sows, then the whole
social pressure drops,” Brown said.
“In a small group it might pay off to
be the boss of that small group. But if
you’ve got to dominate a whole large
group of animals then the payoff of
being dominant is much reduced.”
Brown also cites evidence that
sows in groups do at least as well as
those in stalls. There is reduced lame-
ness and improved individual fitness.
There are also fewer piglet injuries
after farrowing, which Brown attri-
butes to improved muscular strength
among mother pigs in group housing.
estimates on housing conversion numbers
Asked about producer uptake, Brown
guesses that Canadian producers are
about 25 per cent converted to group
sow housing. However, both she and
Ontario government swine specialist
Laura Eastwood say the numbers are
highly speculative.
“You’re seeing way more renova-
tions, mostly in Quebec and quite a
few in Ontario,” Brown said. Among
large western herds, some produc-
ers seem to be holding off, although
Maple Leaf Foods has completed
conversion of eight Manitoba barns,
Brown said.
Doug Ahrens was among the
province’s early adopters of loose
housing with a $300,000 renovation/
addition to an existing barn. The
veteran Perth County producer who
has spent 34 years growing pigs, be-
gan designing the facilities five years
ago for his 650-sow operation near
Sebringville.
Drawing on what he has seen and
heard as chair of the 2015 London
Swine Conference and an Ontario
Pork board director, Ahrens figures
as much as 30 per cent of the conver-
sion has already happened or is on the
books.
“The ship has sailed; the consumer
has spoken,” he said in an interview.
Feeders make ‘a huge difference’
Equipment now available to handle
the animals “makes a huge differ-
ence,” Ahrens said.
His own experience involves
relatively large, “dynamic” groups of
about 300 animals using a battery of
five German-made Weda Dammann
& Westerkamp GmbH electronic
feeders. For the animals, the conver-
sion has been strongly positive, he