Farmer Focus: Careful handling reduces weaning stress
Rob MacGregor © Tim Scrivener One of the greatest challenges we face on an outdoor breeding unit is the efficient execution of weaning day.
Not least because the task often starts in darkness with head torches lit, and by the end of the shift, when up to 2,000 piglets have been collected up, everyone involved is pretty weary and more than ready to head home for a rest.
See also: Pig vaccination without needles – how it works
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Over the years, I have worked to find ways to smooth out the hitches, make life as easy and safe as possible for the staff and create a routine that is as undemanding on the pigs as possible.
Hydraulically lifting, ramp-free stock trailers that load from the side are a good example of the innovations we have adopted.
Since coming to NFL, I have been introduced to a few new weaning techniques and procedures that have been real eye-openers.
Rather than loading up to 400 piglets onto a trailer, we collect litters from the arks using a box on the front of a highly manoeuvrable telehandler, with a capacity of about 100 piglets.
These are quickly ferried back to a lairage tent where they are run up a short ramp into a raised, high-sided vaccination race.
Drop-in boards are then used to split the group into small batches of about 10 piglets in each compartment.
The staff then administer the piglets with the required vaccines using needleless guns. It’s a much less stressful way of treating the piglets than using intramuscular steel needles.
The task often starts in darkness with head torches lit, and by the end of the shift everyone is pretty weary and more than ready to head home
Other benefits to this system include operator safety, reduced carcass damage, and environmental gains from the low dose rates used.
Once each batch has been vaccinated, the race sides are lowered slightly and we manually lift piglets out, sorting males and females into separate pens on either side of the race as we go.
This is necessary because the piglets will have reached maturity before they leave the free-range finishing fields.
We use our own road transport to take the piglets off the breeding units.
Because of the very short time spent in the lairage and relatively short journey times to nearby farms, the common weaning stress-related issues are minimised and piglets get off to the best possible start in their new homes.