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Overweight finishing pigs, ‘rolled over’ due to Covid-19 interruption of slaughter lines, have put pressure on ventilation systems and turned the heat up on pig farmers, says an environmental specialist.
The extra liveweight has raised piggery temperatures enough to cause fans on some units to operate at levels not normally seen until late spring or summer, potentially catching out systems that have not been maintained properly, points out Tim Miller of ARM Buildings.
Pigs nearing slaughter at 110 kg liveweight produce about 200W of heat each, equivalent to 100 single bars of an electric fire in a typical 500-pig house! However, when held over for a week or so, as has happened recently, they can put on as much as an extra 10 kg apiece – 5,000 kg. “This will produce up to 9kW of extra heat which means piggeries will exceed set temperature even quicker, causing fans to work flatout for extended periods of time,” said Tim.
“In some piggeries individual fans can remain idle for months if not linked to a sequencing system, such as that offered by Dicam. If they don’t work when needed there can be serious problems,” he said. “When a house is at maximum stocking density, full ventilation capacity is needed, and this is when routine servicing pays dividends.”
He points out that, according to Defra figures – assuming a 75 per cent killing-out percentage – average UK liveweight of finished pigs leaving farms in January jumped from 115.0 kg to 120.9 kg. “I have been on farms where pigs have been as heavy as 130 kg before farmers could send them to slaughter,” he said.
March 18, 2021 - ARM Buildings
