Housing & Equipment

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A sense of pride from free access stall use

A sense of pride comes over Danish farm manager Henrik Mikkelsen when seeing that his sows are in good shape. He keeps his sows in a free access group housing system during gestation. One stall, one sow - and it works fine.

During the gestation phase, sows can walk around freely. It is only one year ago, that production went up... read more »

What the textbooks don't tell you about... Working with a ventilation engineer

Natural notions save energy and time

Herd expansion on Jørgen Christiansen’s farm in Havndal, Denmark, presented an opportunity to replace the sow stalls with a system that respects consumer demands for welfare. Jørgen’s final choice for natural ventilation and sow groups with electronic sow feeding (ESF) stations has also answered his own demands for an economical production system. read more >

Hot climate houses

There is a considerable challenge involved in housing pigs in a hot climate and achieving a competitive level of production. Experience of intensive production systems, however, has revealed some specific design preferences. read more >

Temperature control not enough

The artificial environments we create have a great impact on production performance and the health status for both the pig and workers. Control systems have to assess the thermal environment beyond air temperature while more research is necessary to evaluate the effect of multiple air components. read more >

What the textbooks don't tell you about... Curtain-blind operation

Curtains or blinds have grown in popularity in the more temperate / warmer parts of the world because they are simple and cheap to install, but they tend to be poorly designed and badly operated on too many pig farms. A few notes from my own experiences may be of help? read more >