While no surprise because hog farmers don’t really have a choice in the matter, Dr. Yolande Seddon, a research scientist with the Prairie Swine Centre says changes to Canada’s Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs has increased the interest in the implications of transitioning from conventional stall housing of gestating sows to group housing.
As a result of changes to Canada’s Pig Code of Practice, the Canadian pork industry is moving away from stalled housing of gestating sows.
Dr. Seddon, speaking as part of the Prairie Swine Centre’s annual spring producer meetings in Niverville and Portage la Prairie is a postdoctoral fellow in ethology with the Prairie Swine Centre, says as farmers look to manage sows in groups questions arise. These include how they better design the system to accommodate large groups, better promote flow and calm, what role does genetics play and how can the industry better monitor welfare.
“Since interest in group sow housing, much research has gone on historically and as we’re learning more it also prompts doing more research,” she said. “We are involved in a lot of sow housing research here at the Prairie Swine Centre and one of them is in fact the Swine Innovation Porc funded research which is looking at different aspects of the way we manage the sows. This includes the mixing time of the sows.”
Dr. Seddon says they’re looking at this in a free access stall and electronic sow feeder systems and two feeding systems. They’re looking at other things such as how the flooring impacts how the sows walk and fare on it and levels of lameness.
“We’re looking at how we can promote calm in the group through design of the system and use of enrichment in that system,” she said. “There is also a lot of other research going on into sow longevity out there and these are really factors that are going to influence how well we can produce sows sustainably in these new group systems and how we need to tweak the management.”
President and CEO Lee Whittington of the Prairie Swine Centre says, as pork producers plan to move to group housing they must consider a range of factors from capital costs to how staff and pigs will adjust to the new system.
“The PSC has worked with group housing since 1999 and with producers who have both made the change, and who built new facilities,” said Whittington. “For example, producers who move into this new type of sow housing, they’ll have some concerns typically of how do I get my gilts to go through my electronic sow feeder.”
He says there is much science behind the training of gilts for instance and how often the producer needs to move them through the system and with the least amount of labour?
“So we’re melding the challenges and success that individual producers have had with what does the science tell us about that,” he adds. “What do we know about the behaviour of the animal that is going to make the job easier to make that conversion.”
Whittington says it’s a radically different system from what hog farmers have used in the past 25 to 30 years so there are questions about such factors as capital costs, changes in how staff operate and how the sows will adjust to the new system.  •
— By Harry Siemens