Project in pigs

PROJECT IN PIGS

I have a land of 470 ha and for this land I make a farm with 2860 sows. I buy Landrace sows and I inseminate them with semen from Duroc that I bayed from Hatting.

470ha*1,4=658 DE

1̲s̲o̲w̲ =0,23 per sow

4,3sow/DE

2,31 litter/year*11,6=27 pigs

2860 sows * 27 = 77.250 piglets/year

Pregnancy unit 115 days

Furrowing unit 28 days

Service unit 5 days

Non productive days 10 days

Total of days 158days

Litter /year :365 days /158 days =2,31 litter /year /sow

Insemination per year 2860*2,31 litter =6606,6 sows ins/year

Insemination per week = 6606,6 ins/52 weeks =127,05 sows ins/week

Farrowing unit:

28 days+7 days = 35 days

35 / 7 days = 5 weeks

5 weeks * 127,05 ins./week = 635,25 boxes

2,5 m length + 1,5 m width = 4,2 m

635,25 boxes * 4,2 m = 2668,05 m

Pregnancy unit

108 days / 7 days = 15,43 weeks

15,43 weeks * 127,05 ins./week = 1960,38 sows

1960,38 sows / 64 sows/box = 30,63 ≈ 31 boxes

100 sows.188,4 m

64 sows.x

31boxes * 120,58 m = 3737,98 m

2 boxes for hospital 2 * 120,58 = 241,16 m

Total 33 boxes

Total 3979,14 m

Service unit

10 days + 5 days = 15 days

15 days / 7 days = 2,14 weeks

2,14 weeks * 127,05 ins./week = 271,89 ≈ 272boxes

1,9 m length * 0,6 m = 1,14 m/box

272 boxes * 1,14 m = 310,08 m/boxes

5 boxes for hospital 5boxes * 1,14 m = 7m/boxes

10 boxes for boar : 10 boxes * 6 m = 60 m/boxes

Total 287 boxes

Total 377,08m/boxes

635,25 boxes + 33 boxes + 287 boxes = 955,25 ≈ 956 boxes

2668,05 m + 3979,14 m + 377,08 m = 7024,27 m

In my farm of 2860 sows I produce piglets to 7 kg which are sold to other farms that have clima stables and slaughter stables. With the money that i get from selling pigs I buy gylts. My replacement rate in the farm is 46%. I have to buy new sows every week.

2680 sows *46%= 1315,6 gylts ≈ 1315 gylts/year

1315,6 gylts/2,31 litter/year = 569,52 gylts for one cycle

569 gylts/10=56,9 boxes≈57 boxes

57 boxes * 19 m²= 1083 m²

Also, I have ten Duroc boars from witch I use the sperm to inseminate the sows. The boars I cheep them in separate boxes and each box has 6m². If we don't cheep them separate they will start to faith to establish the hierarchy.

The objective of animal welfare in my farm is to fulfill as much as possible animals' physical demand, minimize fights and injuries, treat sick and injured animals and produce pigs ,but in same time I have to minimize fear, stress and agitation.

In farrowing unit, I make sure that the pregnant sow can manifest her instinct by giving her a lot of straw before farrowing, so she can make the nest

Also I use hey all the time in order to fill the stomach with fibrous food whenever she is hungry. Sprinkler system is available to enable regulation of body temperature for all the sows.

For shoulder problems I increased number of feeding per day so the sow should not stay too much lied down. I experimented different types of mattresses, in order to choose the best one for the sow.

For the sick sows I have in gestation unit a special place for hospital/relief pens. Animals are placed there either when in need of extra heat and space and a soft bed, or when in need to have access to feed or water without competition. These pens have twice the space as healthy animals rubber floors. Sows with very bad shoulder problems are also kept in here, are treated and then the easy cases are sent to slaughter.

The farrowing unit is traditionally-designed farrowing

Service unit also traditional design,the sows are housed in single pens with direct access to the boar. All sows have snout contact with the boar but only 10 at a time during insemination.

Gestation unit is in loose housing with joint feeding stalls which are only used when the sows are fed or vaccinated and for sorting out sows to be moved. The number of feeding stalls determines the number of there is room for.

Immunity is the ability of animals to resist infections caused by micro-organisms or to limit the impact of these micro-organisms or their toxic by-products.

The pigs are resistant to a great number of micro-organisms.The surrounding environment of pigs can influence very much their health.

Pigs 's immunity is very important in my farm and I try to respect some rules:

correct house temperature;

good ventilation ;

A good humidity and a constant temperature;

A good hygiene in the entire stable;

I try not to mix and move too much the pig, not too stress them and like this I have control over the disease;

Access at clean water and high quality feed;

We take the gyulle every week, so the toxicity level is very low;

A good vaccination of the sows 6 and 3 weeks before faring for the future pigs immunity;

We leave the pigs first day to suckle colostrums from their mother;

We maintain the new animals in quarantine to protect our herd from getting new diseases;

The staff maintains a good hygiene of the stable and of themselves;

Mastitis is inflammation of one or more mammary glands caused by a variety of bacteria species or secondary to other diseases. It is a common condition that occurs in individual sows or sometimes as a herd outbreak associated with a specific infection. Disease starts at or around farrowing and becomes evident up to 12 hours later. The sows have no appetite; the temperature is high after farrowing (39.5-41s C). The udder is firm, hard and hot. Some sows have a white discharge from vulva, meaning they have uterus infection.

Like treatment we use first Oxytocin to let milk down (0.5ml) and the vet prescribes antibiotics (Borgal-15ml, Penovet-15 ml, Mamyzin-10 ml). In severe cases we inject the sow twice per day .The treatment can last from 3 to 5 days.

We can prevent this disease by:

maintaining a good hygiene of the farrowing pen(wash very well and disinfect the pen before the sow comes in);

fresh drinking water;

dry farrowing floors;

maintaining a stable temperature and ventilation in the farrowing unit;

Faeces removal behind the sow every day;

We experiment also spraying the udder daily with an iodine based solution, starting 24 hours before farrowing(hygiene of the udder);

We can give antibiotic in the sows feed.

Another disease that we have in the farm is shoulder sores.

The sores can vary from small red patches on the skin, to wounds of up to 10 cm in diameter. Sores are caused by pressure compressing the blood vessels supplying the skin and tissues covering the shoulder blade, this interrupts the blood flow causing tissue damage and the formation of lesions.

It occurs from time to time especially in the first two weeks after farrowing, because:

The sow is staying very much lied down to feed the piglets;

It appears more on skinny sows that are laying down much down, or to the fat sows because they have problems in getting up;

Older sows are at higher risk of developing shoulder sores; this may be related to the increased weight of the animal or loss of body condition over consecutive lactations;

Sows that had shoulder sores can make them very easy again;

There are 4 scales of shoulder sores. The first two we usually treat them in the sick pens. But for the other two we dont treat them. We kill them. Every day these sows are treated with a solution that the vet recommends us: a mixture of Halosan, Zinc and water for 7 days.

To prevent this disease we took some measures:

First we experiment many types of mattresses and we choose the best one for the farrowing pens; we had still a big disadvantage with the mattresses-poor hygiene around the food troughs. So we clean more often the farrowing pen;

We increased the number of feeding per day so the sow should not stay so much lied down;

We increased the number of feeding unit in gestation unit, so the sows to have a good body score condition when they come in farrowing unit. They will lose many kg in the lactation period;

All the sows that had problems with shoulder are given extra attention. This includes a good management and all the staff has to pay attention on this item.

Feeding strategy

The feeding system that I use in the farm is Big Dutchman. In farrowing unit I give 5 times food/day. First day when they are brought in here they get 3 FU/day. When they are farrowing they have 2-3 FU/day. Than I regulate food every morning when the program starts with the help of a PDA that is after connected to the big computer. When I check the feed I look at the trough if is empty or not and at the sow (age, weight, body condition score) and at how old the pigs are. I add or subtract 0.5-1 FU/day, until the sow reaches to 10- 11 FU/day.

In gestation unit is much easier because the computer is doing everything. On the computer I just write the no of sows on the ventil, what kind of animal is on the ventil (sow or gylt) and how many days she has since she had been moved to the ventil. And the computer is taking care of how many feeding unit the sow should receive every day:

-Dry period: 4FU/day;

-The next for weeks until scanning 3-3,5FU/day;

The next 8 weeks in goes down to 1, 95 FU/day and growing again to 4 FU/day in the last 4 weeks of pregnancy.

Gylt unit:

200 FU from 30-100kg

200FU/365 days=0.54FU/gylt

1315 gylts*0.54FU=7101 FU/day

And from 100-130 kg the computer allocate them 2.5 FU/day.

1315 gylts*2.5FU.day=3287,5FU/day

Boars 10boars*3.5FU/day=35FU/day

Total for one day:

2860 sows*1300 FU/365=10186,3 FU/day

10186,3 FU+35FU+3287,5 FU+ 7101 FU=20609,8FU

Weekly work :

Monday : start 07.00 15.30

Employed : 7 workers