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The three-day study tour saw the group visiting industry experts and specialist pig units to investigate how Irish systems have developed over the past 20 years.
In particular, they wanted to see for themselves how farmers have coped with loose housing of sows since the stall ban and the alternative fully-slatted accommodation being used.
“One of the units had put in under-floor ventilation through central passageways. The producer said that this is a fairly low-cost, yet effective, system to install and run,” says Sue Rabbich, BPEX environment and building research co-ordinator.
“However, to my knowledge, this system is not being used by many producers in the UK. Given performance figures on this site, it may be an option to consider when building a new shed.
“A second building was using an automatically controlled natural ventilation (ACNV) system with an automatically controlled ridge. Again, this is cheap to run but its overall success depends on getting a lot of initial aspects correct from the outset, for example, roof angle and height of the ridge. For this reason, it would require careful planning,” says Sue.
Steve Winfield, BPEX lead knowledge transfer manager says: “Ultimately, we want to help farmers improve pig growth, feed conversion and energy efficiency to reduce costs, which are key priorities for improving business performance. Best practice in building development can have a huge impact on these.
“The visit has certainly got our group of producers thinking - some are now looking at building new sheds as a result, incorporating the systems they saw.”
November 12, 2014 - BPEX
