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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.
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One Producer’s Experience in Switching to Sow Group Housing
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by student on June 26, 2018
Author: Harry Siemens
Reference: Prairie Hog Country – October/November 2017
Summary:
One of the topics discussed at the group sow housing seminar in Winnipeg, MB was innovation and technology. One producer from Ontario demonstrated the use of technology for constant monitoring of the animals. In his facility he has Wi-Fi technology that links barn equipment with his phone and computer. One piece of equipment that is linked up to John Van Engelen’s phone, the barn manager, is the electronic sow feeders (ESF). If there is a problem with the sow he can just look at her records on his phone.
Another technology that Van Engelen utilizes is RFID, through this he tracks growth rates. This technology allows him to pick out the sick and weak pigs. The RFID is also connected to his sorters so that he can track individual pigs at the sorters. Rather than just using the sorters for just shipping the pigs, he also uses them for phase feeding so that he can feed them more precisely what they need. His dry sows receive two different diets through a dual feeding system in his ESF.
One Producer’s Experience in Switching to Sow Group Housing.eps