Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America

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Many other aspects of crate design are crucial to sow and piglet performance, in particular height of the bottom rails which affects teat accessibility, rear bar design (some cause vulva damage) and presence of bolts or sharp edges which may cause injury. Most of the problems experienced could be avoided by utilizing pig dimensions at the design stage. Li Y, and Gonyou HW. Water intake and wastage by grower/finisher pigs at nipple drinkers. 2004; Available at: URLhttp://adminsrv.usask.ca/psci/

Even the best feeders are only vessels. Keep in mind that pigs get the most out of a feeder into which the right food is put. Pigs, like many animals, prefer a varied diet. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to give your pigs any supplements; they should get all the vitamins and nutrients from the food you provide. They also need clean water with their food — a good reason to make two of these troughs and fill the second with water. What You’ll Need Which change in the pattern of daily usage is the best predictor of pig health and performance is still unclear. Based on producer observations, when water usage drops for three continuous days, or drops more than 30% in one day, this may indicate that a potential health challenge may be occurring. These changes in usage pattern should serve as an indication to the caregiver to look more closely at the pigs that caused that pattern change for signs of illness or discomfort. A spreadsheet to create barn sheets for the purpose of charting water patterns is available at: http://porkcentral.unl.edu. Fraser, D, Patience JF, Phillips PA, and McLeese JM. Water for piglets and lactating sows: quantity, quality and quandaries. In: Haresign W, and Cole

It is possible to use conventional dry rations mixed with water for liquid feeding, but one of the main benefits of using a liquid system is the ability to use a bigger range of raw materials. There is a range of liquid co-products from the human food industry of which the best known is whey. Others in common use are liquid potato, chocolate, yogurt and brewery co-products. Some products are brand marketed such as

Yang TS, Howard B, and McFarlane WV. Effects of food on drinking behaviour of growing pigs. Appl. Anim. Ethol. 1981; 7:259-270. For example, consider designing the water delivery system for a 1000 head finishing facility that has 20 pens on each side of a center aisle. Each pen will have two nipple drinking devices. If all of the nipples on one side of the aisle are being used at the same time, this would be 40 drinkers that must be supplied with water. Assuming 4 cups/min flow from each drinker (Table 2), total water flow from the supply line would need to be 10gal/min (4 cups/min x 1gal/16 cups x 40 drinkers). If the water flow were any less than this, there is the chance that one or more drinkers would have reduced or even no flow when a pig attempted to drink. Brooks PH, Carpenter JL, Barber J, and Gill BP. Production and welfare problems relating to the supply of water to growing-finishing pigs. Pig Vet. J. In addition to drinking water needs, water must be available for cleaning and other uses. As swine facilities have grown in size, issues associated with sizing of water supply lines have become more critical. Water:feed ratios decrease as pigs grow [11]. For example, in two experiments, water:feed ratios with gate-mounted nipple drinkers were 3.35:1 for 40 to 55 lb pigs, declining to 2.27:1 and 2.58:1 for 209 lb pigs. When pigs were given water only in the feeding trough using a commercially available wet/dry feeder, water:feed ratios declined from 2.11:1 to 1.50:1 and when pigs were offered water using a bowl drinker the ratios declined from 2.11:1 to 1.77:1. Recent on-farm data [M.C. Brumm, unpublished data] supports the conclusion that water:feed ratios decline as pigs grow, with a ratio as low as 1.5:1 common in facilities that use wet/dry feeders or stainless steel bowl drinkers in late finishing. Assuming similar water:feed ratios for both barrows and gilts, it follows that barrows drink more water than gilts [12] since barrows eat more feed per day than gilts in mid to late finishing [13]. Pigs fed meal diets drink more water than pigs fed pelleted diets [14], reflecting similar water:feed ratios and differences in feed conversion efficiency.MWPS. Midwest Plan Service. Swine nursery facilities handbook. Publication no. MWPS-41. Ames: Iowa State University; 1997.