Page 4 of articles about farrowing room in Articles

Different systems allow the sows to eat several times a day. In some of them we are the ones who decide, in other ones it is the sows.

It is common to see that there are many farms on which the gestation of the sows entered in the farrowing quarters is not correctly managed. How much space / batch would be losing a farm that enters systematically a 10% of sows / batch one week before than the appropriate date?

There are many home-made options that allow us to carry out this so important technique on our farms.

Knowing how to make the most of space in our farrowing rooms is a key point, not only when using foster sows, but also for increasing the age at weaning. The farrowing pen is the most expensive pen at the farm, and we must obtain the maximum possible efficiency out of it.

Small piglets with a low viability are a growing problem, and they represent one of the main causes of pre-weaning mortality.

Constipation is one of the factors that are involved in pre weaning piglet mortality.

The litter size of the recent and the last farrowing batches was significantly reduced, and the suckling pigs showed an obvious varying weight, condition and viability.

As of the 3rd-4th day of lactation it is not recommendable anymore to replace small piglets and piglets with poor a growth rate for good piglets, because it is probable that the teat that has to be used has already dried off due to the scarce stimulation received for several consecutive days.

A simple method to facilitate the daily calculation of the nurse sows needed for the correct running of the farrowing quarters in a hyperprolific sows system.

When there are not enough teats, the strongest piglet always occupies the place of the weak one, that is left without milk to suckle.

Normally, when we ask a farmer which is their average number of weaned piglets per sow they normally know this parameter, because its calculation is easy, nevertheless...

In the previous piece of advice we saw that in small farms it could be interesting to maintain a certain order when entering the sows in the farrowing quarters depending on their parturition. Nevertheless, in big farms or in farms that group together many farrowings at the same time we will have to think about the order in another way, because if the farrowing quarters are not very big we will have the same batch of sows housed in several rooms.

If once we have evened out the litters a sow farrows during the late evening, what do we do?

We analyze a real case, and we will check out how a partial analysis of the data can give place to erroneous conclusions.

It was developed in USA as a way to improve communication of what needed to be done to improve the chances of success in stabilizing and managing breeding herds.

We are going to see a practical example of how to even out litters after the farrowings in a quick way and minimizing the swappings of piglets.