The large far- rowing pen houses four farrowing sows.


Sow in the pig toilet. Bekkers uses rewards to try and get the animals to urinate there as well.


away one of the smaller sows. She drops down a few metres away, after having drawn a large furrow in the sand with her nose. Wind says, “Great how they behave, isn’t it? Rank still applies like it does in the traditional barns, but here they have am- ple opportunity to root and dig.” Together, the four farrowing sows have 53 piglets. As soon as the first sow has lain down, all youngsters dash to their own mothers. The first group of farrowing sows was split up


A feed mount above the pens is used four times a day.


into one group with a weaning age of five weeks and anoth- er of six weeks, to see what worked best. Bekkers says, “We saw little difference in weaning weight. Weaning takes place more gradually at an older age, because the piglets join in with feeding. We were afraid at first that the sows would lose weight, but this did not happen.” The first group of finishers has been slaughtered. The ani- mals achieved 950–1,000 grammes growth per day. Muscu- lar development is a challenge in the finishing period.


▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 10, 2020


www.pigprogress.net/ worldofpigs


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