How to keep your industrial pig pen clean

Despite the common proverb about the love of pigs for dirt, it is not true. In fact, pigs prefer to live in a clean environment even under intensive production conditions. How many square meters should be allocated to animals for the implementation of natural remedies at conditional toilet points, Chinese experts found out

In recent years, animal cleanliness and sanitation has attracted attention in the context of welfare and biosecurity. Although pigs naturally tend to defecate in dark and damp corners, a high intensity production model does not allow the animals to do so, resulting in fouling of pens with adverse effects.

First, emissions of harmful gases. Among them, ammonia emissions are particularly affected by floor areas contaminated with faeces and urine. When the amount of manure accumulated on the floor is reduced, ammonia emissions can be reduced by 40-60%.

Secondly, damage to animal health and welfare. When the floor in the barn is heavily manured, the pigs slide on the faeces with the risk of injuring their legs, increasing the risk of spreading infections. It must be remembered that pigs prefer clean and dry places for movement and rest.

Thirdly, animals that are kept clean give the best weight gain and healthy offspring.

There are many factors that affect sanitation. For example, the level of soiling in pens increases with the temperature in pigsties. In one experiment, with an increase in temperature of about 6 ° C, the lying behavior on a hard floor in animals decreased by 42.3%; urination and defecation increased by 75.8% and 139.5% respectively, skin contamination was severe.

The excretion behavior of pigs is also affected by improper equipment placement. Thus, adding an extra drinker outside when there was already a drinker in the slatted floor increased the pollution inside the pen.

As an important environmental factor in pig production, stocking density has a direct impact on pen pollution. At high stocking densities, it is relatively difficult for pigs to move between different areas and therefore animals are more likely to defecate in the lying area and lie down in the feces area.

Conversely, at reduced density, available space means that pigs will tend to defecate in a space not used for other activities. Therefore, proper planting density is essential to keep the paddock clean.

This study was conducted from August 8 to September 18, 2018 in the nursery and fattening facility of the Chongqing Academy of Animal Sciences, Chongqing, China .

A total of 216 growing Landrace × Yorkshire × Duroc hybrid pigs (body weight 23.5 ± 3.7 kg, age 59 ± 3 days) were randomly assigned to 12 pens.

In accordance with current industry standards in China, the stocking density in the trials was set at three levels: 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9 m 2 / head (four pens per treatment and 18 pigs per pen). The experiment was carried out for 35 days, the final live weight of pigs was 50.5 ± 6.5 kg.

The experimental pigsty was completely fenced in, with one plastic feeder and two drinking bowls per pen to give the pigs free access to food and water. An evaporative cooling system was used to control the thermal environment in the house. Feeding was carried out at 8:00–9:00 and 16:00–17:00 daily. The hard floor was cleaned twice a day before feeding.

The floor of the experimental pigsty was partially slatted (1/2 slatted floor and 1/2 solid concrete floor). The proposed lying area was a solid concrete floor, while the slatted area was intended for excrement. Above each pen, a camera was installed to automatically record the behavior of the pigs, then video recordings from the 1st, 7th and 35th days of the experiment were selected.

An analysis of whether the pigs had appropriate behavior in specific functional areas showed that animals at a density of 0.9 m 2 /pig had a 10.14% lower level of lying on slatted floors (expected stool area) than on solid floors, while at a density of 0.5 and 0.7 m 2 /pig the opposite was true.

These results show that when the effective space occupied by the pigs is larger, the specific behavior is exhibited in the given functional areas and the cleanliness of the pen is higher.

Under the conditions of this experiment, the recommended stocking density for growing pigs was 0.9 m 2 /head. Of course, even more space can be better and beneficial to animal health and welfare, but the economic costs must also be taken into account.