liquid and solid manure. That can be done in the manure pits, where liquid manure trickles through to a deeper gutter for re-use on the farmland for arable purposes. Solid manure gets scraped away automatically multiple times per day from the manure pits to a central underground alley and then eventually ends up in the biogas tank – where, for example, the contents of the deduster from the straw dis- pensing machine also end up. The result is a more pleasant smell inside the pig houses. On-site there are two biogas tanks and two tanks for storage. The biogas plant generates sufficient energy to keep the farm and its houses going; the remainder is sold to an electricity company.
Snapshot from inside the container of the StrohMatic. Most sows are not kept in crates during lactation at Ten Have farm.
Feed use and distribution As much as possible, Ten Have-Mellema provides locally grown feed to her finishers. For the proteins that presents an interesting problem as most farmers in the Netherlands in- clude soy in their feed rations, and that is usually shipped in from Latin America. Not Ten Have-Mellema though. In her search for richly fla- voured meat, she teamed up with a project to include lupins in her finisher diets. She ended up growing a variety that isn’t too bitter for the animals on 10ha of her own farmland, with the rest being trucked in from nearby Germany. It is mixed on-site with other ingredients like rye, wheat and bread flour and distributed to troughs in pens. There it is combined with the water supply to create a liquid mix in the trough. Ten Have-Mellema uses the Spotmix facility, again from Schauer, to distribute the feed rations to her finishers. The sys- tem allows for flexible phase feeding at the pen level. This is applied with three different rations throughout the finishing phase, and between each phase there is a gradual change of ingredients so that the switch is not too sudden. The animals receive rations virtually continuously during daytime hours. Sows and weaner pigs receive feed rations made by a com- pound feed producer.
Growers: two layers A pleasant surprise in the grower rooms is the installation of a second floor on top of the regular floor. This is an easy way to allow for additional floor space for the piglets inside an exist- ing pig house. The grower pigs – which have 0.5m2
per ani-
mal – enjoy racing up and down. The farm houses are equipped with two Spotmix systems – one for the feed and another to distribute clean and industrially chopped straw on the top floor.
Dry feed is sent to the weaner compartment, which is mixed with water and then distributed into the trough.
20 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 6, 2020
Crate-free area for sows during lactation Freedom during most of lactation is one of the requirements for obtaining the two-star Beter Leven label. Currently up to 80 of the farrowing pens at Ten Have have already been equipped with free farrowing systems which are always open
PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK
PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK
PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK
PHOTO: KOOS GROENEWOLD
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