Page 51 of articles about management

Man is possibly the only animal capable of living in practically all places in the world, regardless of the climate. This is due to his capacity to construct buildings to isolate himself from the climate however extreme it may be, maintaining an environment which allows him to survive. As domestic animals live together with man, they have to take advantage indirectly of this capacity.

To many pig producers cleaning and disinfection is a chore they view as an expensive tedious burden.

In previous chapters we have looked at the importance of maintaining the ideal parity profile within each batch.

Temple Grandin discusses the design of chutes, races, and crowd pens for swine. Low stress handling improves pork quality and reduces PSE.

The administration of local or general anesthesia, accompanied in all cases by a long-lasting analgesic, eliminates or considerably reduces the pain caused by surgical castration. However, the use of these products has certain limitations.

In the last chapter we looked at the importance of achieving homogenous farrowing batches (age distribution + nº sows). In this chapter we will begin to see how to achieve this.

Temple Grandin explains humane slaughter methods to insure good animal welfare at the pork processing plant.

Immunological castration also reduces sexual behavior and aggressiveness during the final weeks of fattening, in this way increasing the time dedicated to the ingestion of food

This month we are setting you a new test, in this case on the welfare of sows accommodated in stalls during gestation.

We have already seen that in order to achieve a correct parity structure and homogeneity of the production batches, it is necessary to control the number of replacement gilts entering the herd.

Anecdotal evidence from pig producers and veterinarians in the field suggests that there are genotype differences in susceptibility to PCVAD

Injecting prostaglandin F2α (PGF) or its analogues is effective for induction of farrowing, although a large range in the interval between treatment and farrowing is usual. Experience has shown that only 50% to 60% of PGF-treated sows farrow during the working day after injection and only these sows are candidates for farrowing supervision.

Until now we have spoken about the general parity structure of the herd, but in an ideal situation this optimum distribution should be put into practice in each of the productive batches of sows.

Richard can tell you a thing or two about pigs. Hes been rearing them for the last 20 years on his farms in East Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Hes also well known in the industry as a tireless campaigner for improved training and higher standards of animal welfare.