Annechien ten Have-Mellema surrounded by pigs kept on straw.


Long tails – tail docking is not permitted under the two-star level of the Beter Leven scheme.


developed and marketed by Schauer Agrotronic, an Austrian company specialised in producing farm equipment for pig production. The straw dispensing is completely automatic – all that needs to happen is that up to eight bales of straw need to be supplied to a large container equipped with a conveyor belt, which is placed in a large room adjacent to the pig houses. A refill is needed roughly once every four days, according to Ten Have-Mellema. Next to the container, in the same room, bales of straw are neatly piled up to the ceiling. When a bale reaches the end of the container, the straw is chopped to the size desired by the farmer, after which it is transported with a large chain system to the various


One of the finishers decides it is time for a stroll outside.


departments. In each pen, holes in the pipes go from small in the front to bigger at the end, so that rations of straw get equally distributed into the pen. The StrohMatic comes with a fire alarm inside the container as well as with an automatic “deduster” – a large vacuum cleaner that sucks away up to 80% of the straw-related dust in the air.


Manure and biogas Animal welfare is not the only thing considered important at Ten Have farm – so is manure deposition. A growing issue in the Netherlands is what to do with excess nitrogen, and one way to proactively deal with it is by immediately separating


▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 6, 2020


www.pigprogress.net/ worldofpigs


19


PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK


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