‘No workable alternative to farrowing crate’
I cheered myself up the other day by getting the Google map of Kenniford up. It was taken in the summer of 2008 when it was dry and not totally saturated, and it reminded me that it will one day be like that again, well, maybe.
Planning permission has been approved for the updating of our finishing unit. Now that hurdle has been crossed I must make the decision as to invest circa £360k in the project and be able to sleep at night. One thing that is making me think twice is that the old unit is still performing quite well. Over the past six months the pigs are going in at 42kg and 54 days later they are coming out at 98kg. This equates to a daily live weight gain of 1kg a day with a mortality rate of 1.3%, which is pretty good. Of course, as my staff regularly warn me, now I have mentioned this in Farmers Weekly, fate has been tempted and the pig performance might start going backwards, which in that case my investment decision will be easier.
Today (21 January) on the farm we are having probably our last Freedom Food inspection, as this time next year we will have been removed from the scheme, because we farrow our pigs in crates. Then after six days we move them into free access pens, which bluntly means we are being penalised for preventing piglets from being crushed to death by their mum. There is no workable alternative to the farrowing crate as yet. There are some fantastically well-run outdoor units in the UK, which are achieving some very low pre-weaning mortality figures, but with the winter weather we seem to be having every year now is this the best environment for a newborn piglet?
Andrew Freemantle farms 300 sows on 28ha (70 acres) near Exeter, Devon. He sells 130 pigs a week, with 85 going to abattoirs and the rest supplying their farm shop, pork wholesale business and catering trailers. Andrew was Farmers Weekly Pig Farmer of the Year 2008.