Loose housing: a concept whose time is yet to come
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
A handful of Ontario producers have adopted the concept, but so far not as many as expected. But industry insiders, such as Ontario Pork's Curtiss Littlejohn, think that more widespread adoption is just around the corner
by MIKE MULHERN
Dave Linton and his son Jeff work among their sows with a quiet confidence that comes from daily interaction and a close relationship demanded by the loose housing system they have devised for their gestating sows.
Dave was one of Ontario's earliest proponents of loose housing for gestating sows, building his first loose housing barn in 1997 and doubling it in size since. The idea for something different came from his son Jeff, who thought there ought to be a better way to house gestating sows than in stalls. Dave asked around and came up with the system they've used ever since.
"The original barn was 40-by-100," Dave says. "We had no idea whether it would work or not."
The Lintons have a 160-sow, farrow-to-finish operation at Brussels. Their system is to house 10 sows in a pen that is 10-by-36 feet. It has a solid floor with a drop off of 3.5-inches to a clean-out area in the middle. The sows are fed on the floor twice a day, the pens are scraped each day and the centre alley is cleaned using a tractor. A small amount of straw is added to each pen every day.
"It's more recreational straw than bedding straw," Dave says. "It's not a straw pack. We scrape down every day and drop in two or three chunks from a small square bale of straw. It depends on the sows. Some of them use it as bedding; some of them eat all the straw. Older sows tend to eat more straw; younger sows tend to use it more for bedding."
Dave says the benefits of straw include better digestion and more comfort for the sows. "It entirely changes the way the gut works," he says. "There is no such thing as constipation with sows eating that much straw and they are more content."
It's been nearly 15 years and a lot of water under the bridge in terms of development and research in Ontario since the Lintons began their loose housing experiment. A few farmers have opted for loose sow housing, but not nearly as many as has been expected.
Nine years ago when Warren and Joanne Caughill built their sow barn near Palmerston adding electronic sow feeders and loose housing, they thought they were on the cutting edge of an unstoppable trend. They were right about the cutting edge part, but they may have been ahead of themselves as far as the "unstoppable trend" is concerned.
"This was going to be the big thing in 2010," Warren says. "In Europe, gestation had to be on an electronic feeding device. Now I think they stretched that out in Europe to 2013 and it may never happen here as far as I'm concerned."
However, Canadian Pork Council member Curtiss Littlejohn thinks the Caughills were right the first time. "I believe in the next three to four years the trend line will take a sharp rise," he says. "Welfarists are not going to quit. They've had successes and every time they sense success, they feel emboldened." (See page 15.)
There's another reason why Littlejohn expects that dry sow stalls will have to go. Trade access to the European Union may depend upon it. Canada has been pushing hard to get the current tariffs on Canadian pork lowered or eliminated. If Canadian production standards aren't a match for those in Europe, dry sow stalls will become a non-tariff barrier.
Kitchener-based agricultural engineer Franklin Kains admits loose housing construction for gestating sows hasn't taken off in Ontario.
"In the last five years, nothing has happened," he says, blaming the lack of development on the economic downturn in the pig industry. "I think there is a stronger interest in alternatives for sows, but there haven't been many new barns built."
"Best for the sow"
Kains says that there are at least three loose housing systems in use in Ontario. The Linton system is one; another is the loose housing system adopted by the Caughills, who feed dry sows with 13 electronic feeders in their 1,500 head capacity barn.
Each sow has an electronic ear tag. When she enters the feeding station with room for just one animal, the computer identifies the sow and its daily ration is released. Once the animal is fed, the feeder gate opens and the feeding station is available for another to enter. At the Caughill farm, there are 80 to 90 animals in each loose housing pen and feed is available 24 hours a day.
Kains says the system is popular in Europe. "This is being good to the sow itself," Warren Caughill says. "It's really the best thing that there is (for the sow)."
A third system, which Kains describes as a stall system where every animal is locked in a stall for feeding and then released for the rest of the day, is used by Stratford area producer Joe Egli. The stall system, Kains says, reduces complications around feeding.
Joe Egli, who has a 500-sow farrow-to-finish operation in the Stratford area, has used this system to produce pigs for the so-called "humane" market.
The advantage of a stall feeding system, Egli says, is that you can customize feed and provide extra nutrients for sows that have lost condition. The drawback, in Egli's opinion, is that it requires straw to be used in every phase of the operation.
Everybody in the weaner barn, in the farrowing room, the sow barn, has to have access to straw," Egli says, noting that the cost of the straw is not the problem, it is the handling. "It (straw handling) costs more than I was expecting."
Egli says that the humane market, for which his barn is set up, is like the organic market, except that in the humane market they are allowed to use conventional, non-organic feed.
Kains cites another version of the Lintons' floor-feeding system, where the pens are divided with low walls that allow the sows some time alone.
Reid Wilson, who lives near Newton, operates that system. He has 500 sows in a barn where they are fed six times a day via an automatic auger and drop system. "There's no such thing as a perfect system," Wilson says, "but this is effective . . . I'd never put stalls in again."
Sows in loose housing "are just more content," he believes. "That's the biggest plus to it." Another advantage is reduced labour. "I know a lot of people aren't going to buy that but, in our system, it is the case."
Wilson's pens hold 20 sows each. "Some sows just don't fit in, they're timid," Wilson says, "but we find it's a very small percentage."
Kains says Wilson's barn is innovative in its design and, with 20-by-32-foot pens, it also allows lots of room for the sows.
"It's an oversized pen," Kains says, "there is more square footage and there are small walls within the pen to divide the feeding and sleeping area into pseudo bedrooms or pseudo kitchens." Kains says that dropping feed over a large area several times a day is also helpful. "That seems to reduce aggression, so consequently you can get away with sows in a pen floor feeding and not suffer sows that gain too much condition and those (others) that are at a disadvantage."
Bigger barn for the same money
Kains calculates that it would be cheaper to build a barn using a floor-feeding system such as the Wilson system than it would be to build a conventional stall barn. "What we asked was, 'How many square feet could we allow per sow and still be the equivalent cost of dry sows in stalls?' The answer was 25 square feet."
In other words, you could build a bigger barn for the same money. If you consider that the European Union standard is 24 square feet per sow and 18 square feet per gilt, you could build up to that space for even less money.
Kains says that variations, such as electronic sow feeders or the use of feeding stalls opening up to loose housing space, would probably cost more. "You've got all the complications of the feeding stall, the feeding trough and the gutter arrangement that you have with the conventional barn, but you've got to make it bigger so the sows have more room to move around."
Ontario Pork has sponsored research on dry sow housing alternatives. But Keith Robbins, director of communications and consumer marketing, says the producer organization has not taken a position on loose housing for gestating sows. "We are neither for nor against," he says.
"This year, we're funding several projects on loose sow housing and how it would function. And we are looking at technology and building design changes." He says that Ontario Pork also supplies resources to producers including barn designs and videos or DVDs about loose housing for sows.
There has been pressure on major integrated producer packers to support the concept. Two major pork producers, Maple Leaf Foods in Canada and Smithfields Foods Inc. in the United States, have come out in favour of loose housing for gestating sows. In 2007, both companies independently declared their producers would be expected to switch to loose housing by 2017.
Smithfields, through their production arm Murphy-Brown LLC, has been increasing the amount of loose housing space each year and expects to have 30 per cent of their dry sows on company-owned farms in loose housing by the end of 2011.
As for Maple Leaf Foods, vice-president of procurement John Carney says it is up to producers to decide when and how to make the transition.
"If somebody comes to us today and says that they are looking to expand or get into the business, then we encourage them to investigate loose housing," Carney says. "I'm a big believer in producer choice, so we certainly encourage our producers to investigate it, but we're not prescribing decisions or solutions."
Dr. Tim Blackwell, an extension veterinarian with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, has worked with producers who have loose housing. "I think we can make loose housing for gestating sows cost competitive and equally productive compared to crates," he says.
For their part, Dave and Jeff Linton think the next step in their loose housing evolution may be loose farrowing. While Dave's not certain about that, he is sure about loose housing, especially if you actually like pigs.
"If you're not a good manager," Dave says, "don't even try it. If you don't like getting in with the pigs and working with the pigs, if you want to automate everything and sit there in front of your computer, don't even think about a loose system." BP
SIDEBAR: Overseas, the trend to loose housing gathers momentum
Looking elsewhere, Ontario agriculture ministry veterinarian Tim Blackwell notes that several U.S. states have legislated loose housing for gestating sows. Pork producers in Australia voted last year to switch to loose housing by 2017. The European Union is mandating loose housing by 2013.
The movement to loose housing for gestating sows has been largely driven by pressure from animal rights and consumer organizations. Proposition 2, which passed in California in 2008 as the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, adds a chapter to the California Health and Safety code to prohibit the confinement of certain farm animals "in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs."
The measure deals with veal crates, battery cages and sow gestation crates. Farm operations in California have until Jan. 1, 2015 to comply. Starting with Florida in 2002, similar legislation has been passed in Oregon, Maryland, Texas, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Colorado. Arizona banned sow stalls in 2006.
On Nov. 17, 2010, Australian pork producers voted to "pursue the voluntary phasing out of gestation stalls by 2017." The vote was taken at the annual general meeting of Australian Pork Limited. A news release following the vote said: "The decision comes at a time when major retailers in Australia are clearly indicating there is a growing unrest among customers about the industry's use of gestation crates."
In the same release, Australian Pork said "today's historic vote propels Australian pork producers onto the world stage as leaders in animal welfare policy development. It also provides the marketing opportunity for Australian pork to differentiate itself against its global competitors who continue to use gestation stalls."
Recently the Manitoba Pork Council released a 54-page document called "Embracing a Sustainable Future," which sets out 82 commitments the council has endorsed on behalf of local producers (www.manitobapork.com/sustainablefuture). It includes a commitment to phase out gestation stalls for sows by 2025.
There is no such commitment in the Animal Care Assessment requirements which will become a component of the Canadian Quality Assurance program on Jan. 1 of next year. Curtiss Littlejohn, an Ontario representative to the Canadian Pork Council, says some producers are nervous about changing their operations and taking on more costs. He says they don't need to be.
Consumers have to realize the implications of converting to alternative animal housing systems, says Charlie Arnot, chief executive officer of the Center for Food Integrity in Kansas City. The Center is dedicated to building consumer trust and confidence in today's food system.
Arnot knows what serious public opposition looks like. He worked for Premium Standard Farms when it was expanding rapidly nearly a decade ago. He says there's nothing wrong with dry stalls for gestating sows, as long as they are large enough. Some farms have stalls as narrow as 22 inches, far too small for multi-parity sows, he says. Sows must have enough room to extend their limbs, he says. BP
(With files from Don Stoneman.)