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Better Pork
December 2016
sity of Guelph and Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada’s Sherbrooke
Research and Development Centre
in Que. and predicts a shift toward
precision management made pos-
sible by electronic feeding.
“So each sow will have a differ-
ent feeding program, and you can
actually take advantage of a better
formulated feed in late gestation
that’s going to meet the needs of late
pregnancy,” she said.
Brown identified growing interest
in these subjects through growing
attendance year over year at group-
housing educational events. She
noted rising levels of construction
that “we haven’t seen in a long time”
in Canada for new swine facilities.
Neil Booth, Maple Leaf Foods’
production manager, has presided
over wholesale revisions to his com-
pany’s Manitoba-based hog-rearing
operations since company CEO
Michael McCain made high-profile
commitments to new standards for
animal welfare and environmental
sustainability. A hog farmer since his
youth in the United Kingdom, Booth
oversees Maple Leaf’s annual pro-
duction of 3.9 million hogs; just over
41 per cent (1.6 million) are raised in
company-owned barns.
The decision to move to loose
housing began at Maple Leaf in 2007,
just ahead of a difficult period for
Canadian hog farmers who saw the
federal government design programs
to reduce their numbers. In some
ways, current barn construction and
renovations are catching up with ag-
ing facilities, Booth said.
Nine years later, Maple Leaf
completed about a quarter of planned
conversion work for the 3,000-sow
barns that are now standard for
the company. Maple Leaf has used
Dutch-designed ESF gear from Ned-
erlandsche Apparatenfabriek, better
known as Nedap. Booth praises the
management potential of ESF data for
lower cost, precision feeding.
New feed lines are capable of
phase feeding sows at different stages
of gestation. Radio-frequency identi-
fication tags will allow the recording
of all significant events in the life of
an individual pig.
Maple Leaf has already seen a
small reduction in feed use follow-
ing ESF installations and expects
to see further efficiencies. In what
Booth figures has become “a con-
tinual process” of adaptation, they’ve
begun introducing computer tablets
for barn workers to electronically
capture accurate real-time data.
“Technology is moving so fast,”
Booth said. “It’s amatter of trying to
grab the bits that aremeaningful to you.”
Sarnia, Ont.-area farmer John
Van Engelen, 55, admits to a touch
of technological obsessiveness and
acknowledges that extra costs oc-
casionally come with early adop-
tion. His 250-sow farrow-to-finish
operation – which features open
sow housing, Nedap ESF and auto
sorting – appears on the NSHCP’s
website. In 2010, he and his wife,
Joan, won the Premier’s Award for
Agri-Food Innovation Excellence.
This spring, John installed Wi-Fi
to permit the use of a sow program
that he can run on his cellphone and
stream music into the barn.
The technology allows for greater
efficiency, saves on labour and
improves the working environment.
John, Joan, daughter Cassie and son
Mitchell all work in the operation.
Mitchell, 24, has returned to farm
after studying agriculture at the
University of Guelph’s Ridgetown
College and working periodically
elsewhere. His interest in new tech-
nology encouraged some of John’s
recent moves.
“I’m looking at my boy here who’s
planning to take over the operation,”
John said. “So (Mitchell) has adapted
very well. He knows exactly what’s
going on now and so, for me, that’s
a benefit.
“If you want to be more efficient,
COMPUTERIZED
HOG
BARN
Curtiss Littlejohn, head of Canarm AgSystems’ sow products division, gave the
Schlegels his personal guarantee of close support to help them overcome any
start-up glitches with the first commercial installation of the SowChoice feeders.
Clare, Catherine and Adam Schlegel have a
2,600-sow and farrowing
operation near Shakespeare, Ont.
Curtiss Littlejohn photo