Turnaround Stall Worth a Second Look: The '90s design offers a compromise between stalls and pens for gestating sows

摘要

If you are among the legions of pork producers struggling to decide if and when to move from individual gestation stalls to some type of group housing, the turnaround stall introduced in the '90s might just be the ticket. Over 20 years ago, under theguidance of animal scientist Stan Curtis, researchers at the University of Illinois experimented with a modified stall design that was 7 ft. long, 22 or 24 in. wide in the front two-thirds, then flared out to 48 in. at the back. The idea was that a sow or gilt would learn to wriggle her body into the rear portion of the stall so she could turn around. The 250-to 300-lb. gilts soon figured out how to turn around in the limited space, Curtis explains.