Loose-housed sows offer new opportunities

The Danish Agriculture & Food Council, Pig Research Centre recommends that newly built housing systems are designed for loose-housed sows. To create the best conditions for pig producers, sows and piglets when switching from farrowing pens to new work procedures, SEGES is taking a multipronged approach to ensure viable and efficient solutions. The aim is to find solutions that address animal welfare, climate impact and cost.

Welfare versus climate in the farrowing pen
Sows defecate, lie and eat in the same position in their farrowing pens. When sows are loose, they will move away from their eating and rest areas to defecate. If slatted flooring is installed in the pen, emissions will rise as the slurry surface increases. A pen with a partially solid floor, therefore, makes good sense. A solid floor also provides the sow with a good lying area and space for rooting and enrichment material for her and her piglets.

One of the challenges involves keeping the solid floor clean. The GUDP project (Green Development & Demonstration Programme), SOWEMIS, seeks to address the challenge of sow welfare and reduce emissions. A number of options are being worked on that will motivate the sow to stand correctly when defecating. One finding to emerge at this stage is that a rectangular pen is preferable to a square one. A rectangular design allows for the pen to be divided into various zones more successfully, which means that sows can be encouraged to use the zones for eating, resting and defecating respectively.

Stalls save lives
In the balance between the freedom of the sow and the risk of piglets being crushed to death, research shows that it is better to use stalls in the critical 2-4 days after farrowing. Monitoring tests carried out by SEGES Innovation show that even if the sow is loose for the first two days after farrowing, it remains completely still for more than 90 per cent of the time. The effect on the sow of being in a stall in the initial days post farrowing is minimal whereas it saves piglets’ lives – which benefits animal welfare and the producer’s bottom line.

Artificial teats
To enable the sows to move around, farrowing pens for loose-housed sows are larger than stalls. The extra space can be used to put more piglets to the sow. Studies are therefore being undertaken to enable the sow to look after larger litters. SEGES Innovation and Aarhus University have together developed a prototype known as the Comfort Cradle with artificial teats that enable piglets to take turns at suckling in the first 24 hours post farrowing. In one experiment, for example, the pigs were put in the Comfort Cradle to suckle for the first eight hours after farrowing. They gained weight as a result. In another experiment where the litter consisted of 18 pigs, 12 were put to the sow while six were put in the Comfort Cradle. All the piglets survived in the first three critical days after birth.

The host of the trial at Overgaard farm is enthusiastic about the product:

"I’m very much in favour of the basic idea that more piglets should be with their own sow. If the Comfort Cradle gets into production, they will eliminate the need for nursing sows and the fewer nursing sows there are, the more stable production is,” says Kristian Vinther, farm manager at Overgaard. The solution requires further development, more working hours and investment in equipment. In return, nursing sows and all the work that this involves will be removed.

Identify sick sows before they crush their piglets
In the case of loose-housed sows, only a few – and, in particular, sick – sows crush their piglets. An effort to identify such sows will clearly pay off. Trial results show that both surface thermometers and small rectal thermometers are not the answer to identifying which sows are sick. A longer thermometer, which takes deeper measurements, should be used and other clinical signs should be observed.