RESEARCH: Effects of removable pig houses on growth performance

Chinese researchers presented an abstract at a conference on the effects of different pig houses on the indoor environmental parameters and growth performance on growing and finishing pigs. They find that growth performance is better in pigs housed in removable housing (5.1% more finishing weight) than those raised in fixed housing.

Lack of organic fertiliser and land resources has become one serious problem in large scale farming. Meanwhile, the problems of occupying cultivated land and accumulating slurry and pathological micro-organisms exist in large-scale pig farms with general fixed pig houses. A type of removable pig house that was designed to solve the problems for raising growing-finishing pigs can be handily constructed directly on the farm that disassembled and relocated after the pigs sold into the market.

The trial was conducted with 216 crossbred (Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire) growing pigs to study the effects of removable and general fixed pig house on temperature, humidity, and the growth performance of growing-finishing pigs.

Block design
According to completely block design, the pigs were randomly divided equally into two treatment groups: the removable pig house group and general fixed pig house group, each with three replications and 36 pigs in each repetition and received the same standard corn-bean diets included a grower from 30 kg to about 60 kg in the average bodyweight and then a finisher until about 100 kg.

The feeding density of the two groups was kept for 1.1/m2 and the pigs were fed freely by wet and dry feeders and provided water ad libitum during the whole period.

The results showed that the average temperature of the removable pig house was 20.33℃, the average daily temperature difference was 6.25℃, and the average relative humidity was 69.33%; average temperature, temperature difference and relative humidity of the ordinary fixed pig house were 16.86℃, 6.34℃ and 65.29% respectively; the relative data outdoor were 15.15℃, 9.94℃ and 64.90 respectively.

Among these data, the difference of average temperature was extremely significant, but there were no significant difference between the average relative humidity of two groups.

Final weight
The average final weight of the finishing pigs reared for 92 days in the removable pig house was 5.06% higher than pigs kept in common fixed pig house for 104 days, and the average daily gain and average daily feed intake were higher than the fixed-pigsty group for 17.28% and 12.13%. The feed to gain ratio was lower for 7.00%. Digestibility between the two groups was not significantly different.

It is clear that the growth performance of growing-finishing pigs and the indoor environment parameters in the removable pig house were significantly better than those in the ordinary pig house.

Source: Ninth International Conference on Livestock Environment Symposium