Page 12 of articles about facilities-equipment in Articles

The mating and control unit is one of the most important elements of a sow unit. Thus, it must facilitate a high pregnancy rate, high number of piglets, uniform body condition, sow longevity and a low return rate.

The vast majority of new farms are fully integrated with land to produce feed ingredients and for slurry disposal, feed manufacture, farms, slaughter and processing.

Trials have shown that a group size of 15-25 pigs per pen is ideal and it also coincides with the capacity of most feeders on the market.

Danish trials indicate that pen shape should be rectangular with a 2:1 length:width ratio, which accommodates activities such as resting, eating, defecating as well as social activities.

For the animals to be comfortable it is important to know their needs. The more needs that we can fulfill the more productive the animal will be.

The planning of a new pig unit or remodelling of an existing one starts with the biological assumptions for the production that is going to take place in the unit.

The most important way of examining the conditions of a building is using ones senses, since these might tell you immediately, whether an environmental problem is present.

Pig rearing practices in the country need a lot of improvement considering that about 70% of pigs are on a backyard level.

Experimentally it is difficult to demonstrate whether a pathogen can be windborne and if so how far.

Wild animals which may spread infection between farms include wild pigs, birds, flies, rats and mice.

Tail biting is a typical non-specific reaction to a deterioration of the environmental conditions.

Pathogens which are highly infectious and only require small doses to establish infection in susceptible pigs and/or those which are able to survive environmentally for relatively long periods can be spread from farm to farm as fomites

The PHP 160 billion hog industry is the second leading contributor to Philippine agriculture coming in second to rice despite being almost exclusively without government subsidy.

A pig building might be ventilated in several ways, which might be categorized according to the method that is used for moving the air through the building. A first categorization includes natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation.

Pigs must have permanent access to a sufficient quantity of material to enable proper investigation and manipulation activities, such as straw, hay, wood, sawdust, mushroom compost, peat ...

This is the first of a series of articles written by Tom Alexander for www.3tres3.com which we would like to publish again here as a way of paying homage and showing gratitude for his invaluable collaboration.