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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.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
OPTIMIZING LOOSE HOUSING
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on May 12, 2017
In most of European countries, group housing has been mandatory since 2013. Since the legislation is part of a European directive, member states may adopt stricter-than-national provisions. This can lead to additions or minor deviations. The majority of member states, however, have adopted the requirements unchanged.
Loose housing can be done in different ways, such as:
• Crates with free access
• Small groups of 6-8 sows
• Larger groups of 20-30 sows with long trough
• Electronic Sow Feeding (ESF)
To optimize a loose housing system with ESF, one-way routing for the sows is preferable. Panel division between laying areas should not be too high. It is important to teach gilts social skills in early stages so they become well socialized sows in any group housing system. To keep sows in good condition during pregnancy, an individual feeding system can optimize productivity. This is also important during lactation. This will becomes a greater challenge if sow productivity increases.