Alternative housing systems for farrowing and lactating sows

摘要

From an ethological point of view, freedom of movement is particularly important for sows during nest building, farrowing, and the postparturient phase. Conventional farrowing crates, however, designed primarily to reduce the rate of piglet crushing, do not allow for this freedom of movement. During the 90ies three types of farrowing pens without crates (FAT 1. FAT 2 and SCHMID) were compared to conventional crates (CRATE) and crates that can be opened to give the sow more freedom of movement and nest-building behaviour (OPEN CRATE). Reproduction performances in the different farrowing pens did not show any significant differences in total losses, nor did the number of crushings vary significantly. However, the farrowing pens without confinement of the sows showed a tendency towards higher crushing rates, whereas the farrowing crates had a higher incidence of runts. Capital expenditure for an eight pen farrowing chamber is only about 5 percent - 7 percent higher for pens without confinement of the sows (FAT 1, FAT 2 and SCHMID) tha for farrowing crates. Daily working time requirements per sow compare with those of standard systems used in practice.