Training Sows Staff for the Transition from Stall to Pens: The Role of the Human-Animal Interaction

摘要

Much of the preparation when transitioning gestating sows from stalls to loose housing centers around issues related to agricultural engineering. This includes how the new facility will be achieved (i.e. via new construction, expansion, or retro-fitting), the type of the feeding system to be used (floor feeding, free access stalls, electronic sow feeding etc), and layout of the barn and pen design (Parsons, 2013; Parsons, 2015). Taken together these decisions often dictate how animals will flow through the barn (segregated parities, pre- versus post-implantation or static vs dynamic pens). All these decisions are critical to a proper loose housing system, but will remain correct for the duration of the life of the facility. Thus in reality, for this part of the transition to be successful these engineering details only have to be done right once during the planning and construction of the barn.