Special Report

Pork producers discuss their transition to group housing of sows

At World Pork Expo on Wednesday, we stopped by the Nedap Livestock Management booth to visit with a couple of pork producers who own and/or manage facilities that have transitioned from gestation stalls to group gestation pens.

 

Thomas Livestock Company

Tim Friedel is the production manager at Thomas Livestock Co. of Broken Bow, Nebraska. Less than 10 years after building a barn, the team at Thomas Livestock pulled the gestation stalls and built group pens with automated sow feeding and management.

“From both the sows’ and workers’ points-of-view, the barn is a fresher, friendlier place to work. This results in a more productive business for us, and we know it’s going to pay for itself in the long run,” says Friedel.

The recent remodeling project is just one part of the plan to convert the entire Thomas Livestock Co. operation to group sow housing. In addition to the remodel, Thomas Livestock has built a new barn with group gestation pens and plans to build another in coming years.

AUDIO: Tim Friedel

 

 

Pig Hill

Chet Mogler and his family built a new facility with the primary goal of creating the best environment for their sows. They chose large group pens for 4,400 sows to replace their 900-sow stalled barn at their Pig Hill facility near Alvord, Iowa.

“Our sow behavior has totally changed, especially at feeding time,” says Mogler. “We never have noisy, high-stress feed drops like we did in stalls. Our sows eat comfortably without competition.”

AUDIO: Chet Mogler