Sow Housing Conversion Trends

Adapting to Sow Housing Conversion Trends

Guest Post:

Emily Herring, Livestock Agent from Pender County

The Situation

While attending the Swine Educators In-Service Training in Iowa I learned general information about a farm in Michigan who is converting from a sow gestation stall housing system into a gestation pen housing system. The reason for this change has been credit to the passing of legislation which passed in 2009 which prohibits sow gestation crates, stalls for veal calves, and cages for chickens. Discussions between the Michigan Pork Producers and the Allied Poultry Industries Association and HSUS (Humane Society of The United States) resulted in a bill that included confinement standards as dictated by the HSUS. These groups felt that an HSUS-driven ballot initiative would be too expensive to fight and might include even tougher regulations. In negotiating the legislation, HSUS said it would “not pursue a Michigan farm animal confinement-related ballot measure prior to the effective date of the law.” The law does not come into effect until 2020 so this would give producers time to convert typical stall housing gestation systems into pen gestation houses. Within the law it is acceptable to have stalls for breeding and for farrowing. The sows can stay in the stall until “confirmed pregnant” and then they are moved back into a pen. They are then moved into a farrowing crate one week before they are due to farrow.

Designing the Barns

The particular farm that was showcased at the training was Dykhuis Farm sow farm with 15,500 sows in 5 different commercial sow units and one breeding stock herd in West Michigan. The design of the buildings all vary somewhat from one building to another. They have a formula they go by for planning a barn for the number of pens needed; farrowing target multiplied by number of weeks in the pen (10). As a general rule at their farm, the stocking rate is 15 square feet per sow and by the end of gestation the goal is 18 square feet per sow. This includes their estimated fall out rate for that pen. Then they use another formula to determine stalls needed for bred sows; breeding target multiplied by number of weeks in the stall (6). Also, in designing barns they have to figure in the number of stalls needed for the hospital area, gilts, and wean sows. Another general rule of 2 sows per feeding box is implemented. Depending on the size of the pen and how it is designed the distance between the feed boxes vary from 18” to 4’ on their farm. So the actual inside design of the barn depends on several factors like size, shape and style of the barn along with the farrowing target rate.

Health Management

Pens are grouped by their due date/breed date and then by their size and parity. When pens are mixed for the first time an extra serving of food is delivered for 2-3 days to the sows to help minimize fighting. If a sow was to become sick, lame, or thin they are removed from the pen and placed in a hospital stall for 35 days to regain body condition and/or health. When sows come into heat they are checked, marked and then moved out of the pen to stalls where they are bred. Vaccinations and ultrasounds are said to be easier done in the pen versus a stall when all the sows are distracted by feed. When sows are due in a week to farrow they are then marked and moved into farrowing crates. They started converting their farms in late 2009 to try to meet the new rule. Since then, the houses that are pen gestation have had close to the same production numbers as they normally would have been in stalls.

Conclusion:

Seven states have passed such laws to band or limit usage of crates, either through legislation or ballot initiatives. States included are Arizona, California, Florida, Maine, Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, and Oregon. All of the following states are ballot initiative states. North Carolina is not a ballot initiative state and this explains why North Carolina has not been affected yet by these types of laws. I thought this was important to bring to your attention because eventually this may become the situation for North Carolina farmers too. Farmers need to be aware of the animal welfare/rights organizations and what they are doing because 7 out of 50 states already have laws prohibiting any or all of the listed, gestation crates, cages for chickens and stalls for veal calves. The information the farm representative spoke on regarding their farm was great to learn about because of the lack of experience most farmers and myself have with pen gestation housing.