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Industry Partners
Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Water Availability and Crowding
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre by admin on January 5, 2015
Space allowance, or stocking density, is expressed in terms of pigs per floor area. Space allowance requirements are based on the body weight of the pig, which is proportional to surface area of the pig. The optimal space allowance is the minimum area per pig for maximal individual weight gain. Many experiments have arrived at the same conclusion: “a decrease in space allowance per pig reduces growth performance” because reduced floor-space allowance increases competition for water and feed, reducing feed intake and consequently body weight gain. However, from an economic perspective it is clear that fewer pigs per pen means less kilograms of pork will be produced per pen, despite the improvement in individual weight gain. Under conventional management in the grower-finisher period, pigs remain in the same pen for several weeks until they reach market weight. The maximum space requirement has to be calculated based on the day that the first pig is sent to market. Considering a target market weight of 125 kg, the first pigs would be typically sent to market when the average weight of pigs in the pen is around 105 to 110 kg. According to the Canadian Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs (2014) the minimum space allowance per pig under these circumstances will be 0.75 to 0.77 m2 or 8.04 to 8.29 ft 2. According to the same publication, a decrease of up to 15% is allowed in the grower-finisher period if the higher