Farrowing Pens for Individually Loose-Housed Sows: Results on the Development of the SowComfort Farrowing Pen

Inger Lise Andersen and Marko Ocepek
Additional contact information
Inger Lise Andersen: Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 1432 Ås, Norway
Marko Ocepek: Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 1432 Ås, Norway

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: The objective of the present paper was to discuss the design of farrowing pens and present the first production results of the “SowComfort farrowing pen” (SOWCOMF). The biggest difference between this pen and the traditional pen (TRAD) presented in the study, is that SOWCOMF contains a nest area equipped with a rubber mattress, floor heating, a rack for straw and no separate creep area. It was predicted that SOWCOMF would result in lower piglet mortality compared to TRAD due to a more stimulating and comfortable environment, and that the use of rubber mats in SOWCOMF would reduce the incidence of carpal joint lesions of the piglets. Results from both farms showed that percent mortality of live born piglets was lower in SOWCOMF than TRAD ( p = 0.004), especially due to starvation ( p < 0.0001) and other causes ( p < 0.0001). In contrast, percentage of overlying was higher in SOWCOMF ( p < 0.0001). The lower incidence of starved piglets in SOWCOMF than TRAD can possibly be explained by more sow-initiated communication with the piglets ( p < 0.001). Most causes of mortality declined over consecutive batches. Percentage of piglets per litter without carpal lesions were significantly higher in the SOWCOMF than in TRAD ( p < 0.0001), showing that rubber mats provide more protection of carpal joints.

Keywords: sows; SowComfort farrowing pen; piglet mortality; sow–piglet communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/6/868/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/6/868/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:6:p:868-:d:839890

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().