Pens could change face of industry

The pen allows the sow to move around in the same space as her babies, as required for the RSPCA’s Freedom Food stamp. The expectation is that it will also deliver survival rates as good as pens in which the sow is ‘crated’, to guard against crushing of piglets. And there should also be a bonus in happier and healthier sows, leading longer lives and producing stronger and heavier weaners.

Farmer David Morgan breeds and finishes 800 pigs a week at Pockthorpe Hall Farm, near Driffield, in what up to now has been a fairly standard indoor operation, although it is generous with straw and scores high on welfare measures.

It has been a Sainsbury’s ‘Concept Farm’ since 2009. But its biggest collaboration with the supermarket to date is the trial now beginning of 72 ‘freedom farrowing’ pens, designed by the Scottish Agricultural College and Newcastle University with input from Mr Morgan and two daughters who work with him on the stock, Kate and Vicky. His wife, Sue, and a married daughter, Rachel Lucas, look after the books and four other staff are employed.

Sainsburys representatives and guests from the RSPCA and Freedom Food were at the farm for an unveiling of the new pens eight days ago.

Standard pens are based on a crate which confines the sow while she is milking. In these, the moulded fibreglass walls have been angled to the floor so there is a safe corner for the piglets wherever the sow lies down, as well as a piglet-only retreat in the farrowing ‘nest’. The pen is also designed with sight lines to neighbouring pig families, which encourage the sow to spend a lot of time on sentry duty, in what seems to her like a vulnerable area, but where she can also feed. An internal gate means she can be easily penned away from the piglets when a stock hand needs to go in.

Kate Morgan said: “You could get three conventional units in the space taken by two of these but we are expecting some of the cost of the extra space to come back in improved sow condition.”

Farrowing sows fed better and recovered more quickly over an eight-month trial with three of the pens. But that was a learning experience and the fully controlled and recorded experiment has only just officially started, with weaning this week of a first batch of piglets farrowed in the new way.

IMPROVING BY DESIGN

one of the designers of the new pen, Emma Baxter of the Scottish Agricultural College, told the Yorkshire Post: “We have been working for 20 years on how to get the sow to do what you want her to do without forcing her but it has always stopped at the commercial level, so it is great to have some pioneers willing to test our ideas.”

Although the pens are not in commercial production, both the SAC and Newcastle are happy to talk to any farmers wanting something similar made, at a cost about 25 per cent more than for standard pens based on a farrowing ‘crate’.

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