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FARM VISIT ▶▶▶


Innovative pig house comes with hiccups


The new finisher pig house belonging to Belgian producer Bart Vanackere has a range of innovations, including a lot of space for the animals, advanced manure separation and vegetable treatment from which the farm can prepare its own liquid feed rations. He is happy, but there’s still room for improvement.


BY RENE STEVENS, CORRESPONDENT T Profile


Name: Bart Vanackere, age 43 Function: Owner of Vanackere farm, near Ardooie, Belgium Farm: The farrow-to-finish farm of Bart Vanackere and his wife Mieke is spread out over two locations with pigs and 25 ha of arable land. He uses PIC pigs, which are eventually sold to meat- packer Vion in Germany. In total the farm has capacity for 550 sows and 5,200 finisher pigs. The latest pig house addition to the farm has four large rooms that can house about 1,350 pigs.


he finisher pig house on Bart and Mieke Vanackere’s farm is not the first or the only one to have large groups – yet here there’s a special sight: about 450 pigs together with enough space to do whatever


they like. Some walk around, others try to get a nap or pass the selecting and weighing unit on their way for a fresh liquid


feed. This pig house, which can house 5,000 finisher pigs, has been in use for two years. Large groups are not common in every country, due to regu- lations to do with closed flooring. In Belgium, however, no such regulations exist. Bart Vanackere chose this system be- cause of the (animal) friendly atmosphere and the option to potentially participate in a wider concept and thus obtain a bonus through the market. He adds, “At the moment we are not that far yet, but we are looking into the possibilities.” His experiences have mostly been good. Technical perfor- mance is as could be expected: feed conversion ratio is not the best, but the gain is acceptable. He is continuously work- ing to find the best climate control, which is mainly related to software of the automatic inlets with high pressure sensors. Checking the pigs appears to be a huge task, but Vanackere usually brings his treatment tools and manages to do what is required. He says, “The trick is to immediately treat a pig. Otherwise you will not be able to find it again.” The largest advantage he experiences is at the selection of the animals; this happens automatically, meaning that Va- nackere can deliver the pigs very close to the desired weight. That translates into, on average, € 0.02 extra per kilogramme at slaughter. Only a few pigs never learn to go through the gate of the sorting system – those he places into a separate room. Continuous weighing also delivers management infor- mation, allowing Vanackere to optimise the feeding regime.


Manure slide underneath the slats When the finisher pig house was being developed, the pork producer made various innovative choices. One of them is a system that is low in emissions. Vanackere started out hoping he could do without installing an air scrubber, predominant- ly because it does not improve the climate inside the pig house. He therefore designed his own system, consisting of a manure slide underneath the slatted floor to remove the sol- id manure, in combination with grooves in the flooring for draining the urine. The combination ensures that less ammonia and odour is present. Vanackere has measured the levels in his farm himself, with his data showing that ammonia levels had reduced by 50% and odour levels by 20-50%. The odour reduction is not suffi- cient enough to be allowed to apply only his own system. Vanackere says, “I could perhaps go for official tests, but that costs a lot and still there will be uncertainty.”


14 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 1, 2020


PHOTOS: ATELIER 68


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