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Ramon Costa and Miquel Forcadell, that work in a farm (Sat La Vall de Soses) located in the province of Lleida, in Spain, will explain to us how they achieve a maximum consumption of water in the farrowing quarters.
Goal:
That the sows always have access to a good amount of fresh drinking water in the farrowing quarters.
Trick:
Use the time delay control valves in the water pipes that supply water to the farrowing quarters in order to control the water flow. When we give a maximum provision of water to the sows in the farrowing quarters we attain a higher consumption of compound feed and the weaning of piglets with a good weight without penalizing the body condition of the sow.
| Time delay valve | A valve for each half building |
Explanation:
We know that the sow needs much more water in the farrowing quarters than during their pregnancy. Paradoxically, the system for providing water during the pregnancy (level of water in a continuous trough) guarantees a much better availability of water for the pregnant sows than to the sows housed in the farrowing quarters. Adding water with a hose or a tap takes too many hours of work in a farm like this one. We have chosen to put a level control valve in the almost 1,400 farrowing places of our farm, but we had to solve a problem: avoid the flow of water during the feeding times, so the sows ended up their food and left the feed trough clean.
| Timer | After eating, the feed trough is filled with drinking water |
Time delay valves have been placed in the pipes that supply water to the farrowing quarters. Just before the unloading of the dispensers of the farrowing quarters, the timer is activated, and all the farrowing buildings remain without water whilst the sows eat their wet compound feed. Some minutes after, the timer allows the circulation of water and all the sows that have emptied their feed trough recover, in very little time, a good level of fresh drinking water in their feed trough.
