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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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Reducing temperature requirements for group-housed sows to reduce cost
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre by admin on August 11, 2016
Author: Ken Engele
Reference: Western Hog Journal Summer 2016
While industry is moving to group housing for sows, research is being done into ways to take advantage of this movement. Work done at the Prairie Swine Centre indicates that if sows are housed in groups, the room temperatures can be decreased from 15°C to between 9 to 10°C, reducing energy costs by approximately 78%.
When sows are housed in groups, they can better interact and control their immediate environment. One way they regulate temperature is to huddle. Allowing sows to huddle can keep sows warm while allowing the temperature of the barn to drop. There are however problems associated with group housing including aggression. This aggression can be increased when sows are placed on a restricted feeding regime, which is common. Sows can be fed a high fiber diet which increases satiety and thereby reduces aggression. Dietary fiber also increases heat production without increasing digestible energy. Therefore, increasing fiber in diets could allow barn temperatures to be lowered.
This study contained two phases. Phase one consisted of an environmental chamber with operant controls. Sows who were fed a high energy, low crude protein diet activated supplemental heat at considerably lower temperatures (10.5°C) than sows fed a low energy, high crude protein diet. Sows fed low energy, high crude protein had average daily gains of -0.5 kg/day as compared to 0.2 kg/day of sow fed high energy, low crude protein.
Phase two configured two barn rooms to group housing. One room was operated at a temperature set point (16.5°C) and one room had an operant mechanism allowing sows to control the temperature. Preliminary results show that sows can tolerate lower temperatures than that of the set point when housed in groups. This lower heating cost can save approximately $5/pig in cost during the heating season.
group housed temperature requirements Engele