The pressure to move to loose housing builds across North America

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Activist campaigning has already led to a move away from gestation stalls in the United States and now Ontario is beginning to feel the impact. But, here at least, change is mainly industry-led

by DON STONEMAN

As the pressure to get gestation stalls out of pork production systems across North America comes to bear in Ontario Dave Van Moorsel wonders whether his solution will work for larger scale producers.

First in 2004 and again in 2007, Van Moorsel expanded his sow herd to 300 by renovating unused finishing space in an old bank barn into group housing and floor feeding.  It was a "cheap and easy solution," says the pork producer who farms with his wife Tara south of Parkhill.

Van Moorsel took out walls between the small finishing pens and poured some concrete over heavy gauge plastic on some of the slatted floor to increase the solid space for feeding. His farm's production is divided equally between gestation stall sows and loose-housed sows and Dave has seen little difference in production numbers. The average farrowing rate is now nearly 91 per cent, with 12.3 average live born per litter.

He says aggression among the grouped sows is low. He likes the loose housing system well enough that if he were to renovate or expand again, he would put all of the sows into group housing for the majority of their gestation period.

The pressure to get gestation stalls out of pork production systems across North America is certainly coming to bear in Ontario.

The question is whether Ontario's pork producers will be given the choice to make changes on their own terms? Or will activist pressure on pork-buying customers lead to push their suppliers into doing away with the controversial gestation stalls, as has happened in the United States?

The pressure is coming on Ontario's pork industry from all sides. The issue of loose housing has been on the schedule of Ontario Pork's September policy conference for months. In early September, the marketing board was receiving many telephone calls and emails from both activists and consumers, says Keith Robbins, director of communications. But they will have to wait to find out what Ontario Pork's position is, says Robbins. In the past, Ontario Pork has taken a position neither in favour of loose sow housing, nor against.

In June, renowned animal care specialist Temple Grandin made it clear where she stands on sow stalls. Grandin, who acts as a consultant for many large livestock and packing companies on animal care issues, in answer to a question from the floorduring a presentation in Mississauga last June, told the audience that the industry should get on with the conversion to group sow housing.

It will be a more expensive way to produce pork, warns Moorefield Ontario-based Paul Fallis, director of international sales and marketing for Canarm (BSM) Ltd. Dry sow stall barns typically allow for 14 square feet of space per sow. New loose housing barns call for 21 to 22 feet per sow or more. That's 30 to 40 per cent more space.

There is, however, a saving on stall hardware. Fallis estimates that the cost for a loose housing system is very close to the same or "marginally more" than with stalls. Recently, he helped put some stalls into a barn that was mostly using loose sow housing near Kincardine. The barn had a capacity for 1,500 sows. That barn was equipped with electronic sow feeders. It's a tried technology used in Europe for years, Fallis says, installed in "99 per cent" of the barns he sees when he does business there. However, the feeders do add costs to the barn.

Loose housing can work, he believes. "In the end you have more cost and the consumer will pay more." But it will be a tough sell in North America where consumers are used to relatively cheap food that was getting cheaper.

Added costs aren't a luxury most Ontario producers can deal with. At Parkhill, Van Moorsel notes that even knocking out walls and pouring concrete costs money, and times are tough in the pork industry as high feed prices take away the limited profitability that had been forecast for this year.

Van Moorsel explains that he moved to sow group housing for purely economic reasons. He knocked out walls on four small finishing pens to make each large sow pen with partial dividing walls. The large pens are 16 feet wide by 32 feet long. Unlike with most loose pen systems, the manuring area is in the centre. Feed is dropped at the front and back of the pens. Each sow has about 18 square feet of space in the pen.

The extra partition walls divide each pen into four areas and give pigs a sense of protection when they are lying down and keep away boss sows when the feed is being dropped. This way, they can find compatible animals to eat with. (See "Dry sows with centre gutter drawing," Figure 1.)

Even the group sow system is not without stalls, Van Moorsel stresses. After weaning at 20 days, sows are bred twice via artificial insemination and spend 35 days in a breeding stall until pregnancy is confirmed. Only then are they turned into the loose pens to spend the rest of their gestation period.

He groups them by size in the pen, thus eliminating aggressive behaviour. He feeds pigs once a day, first on one side of the pen and then a few seconds later, on the other. There are eight feed drops per pen. Sows get two kilograms of feed each daily.

Management of the sows is critical, including mixing them. That's where the breeding stalls come in. "It doesn't work if you mix them after you breed them," he says. "You get too many open sows."
Overly aggressive or very shy sows are moved into gestation stalls and aggression stops after two days. He places extra feed on the pen floor so that sows perceive that feed is plentiful.  

Van Moorsel farrows 13-14 sows a week. Each pen contains two weeks of farrowings. He doesn't add sows to an established group when half are moved to the farrowing room.

60:40 housing ratio
North of Milverton, Reid and Rhonda Wilson farrow 500 sows in a purpose-built barn and also an older bank barn. About 40 per cent of sows are in loose housing with floor feeding and 60 per cent are in stalls manually fed with calibrated droppers.

The new barn was built in 2002 when the Wilsons needed more sow space. They chose technology based upon research results at the University of Guelph's Arkell research station. The back third of each pen is slatted and there is generally 25 square feet of space per sow with 20 to 25 sows per pen, depending upon the sows' size. (See "Floor fed dry sow image," Figure 2.

Each pen contains five-foot-long stub walls that help to divide it up into separate areas. There are also 280 dry sow stalls, plus 52 stalls in the breeding barn. Like the Van Moorsels, the Wilsons keep the sows from being stressed by contact with others pigs in the weeks after breeding.

At weaning time, sows are moved from the farrowing crates to stalls in the breeding room. About 75 per cent of sows are bred by artificial insemination and most are pregnant within a week. A boar is present in the dry sow room and open sows are identified there and rebred. After 35 days, they are moved to the gestation pens. A bag of shavings is thrown in to supply traction and also to relieve boredom.

Each pen contains one week of farrowings. If a sow there is identified as open, she is removed for a couple of days for rebreeding and then returned to the same pen. Feed is dropped into the pens eight times a day. The controller for this costs an additional $1,500-$2,000, offset somewhat because maintenance is lower in the sow group pens than in the stalls.

Eight years after construction, the couple remains sold on the concept. Rhonda Wilson says they wouldn't dream of going back to farrowing stalls. Loose sow housing "is just not that complicated," says Wilson. "We did loose housing in the 1980s with transponders. It was positive except for the electronics. We know it works. It is so simple. If Reid never saw another gestation crate in his life.

he would be so happy." But she adds a proviso. "If you don't do everything as you should, it probably won't work."

While there seem to be a number of producers feeding groups of dry sows with electronic feeders, floor feeding is relatively uncommon and restricted to smaller operations. For his part, Fallis questions whether floor feeding will work in larger barns. He doesn't see it functioning in pens with 50 sows at a time as there is potential for feed to go down the gutters. Farmers "hate to waste feed" at current prices, he points out.

Producers operating those larger barns may be forced to make expensive renovations if there is a ban imposed any time soon on dry sow stalls.

Good management required
An alternative plan for testing of a conversion of a large scale dry sow barn is in the preliminary stages, but no testing has been done yet. (See "Conversion of a dry sow barn with stalls to group housing with floor feeding," Figure 3.)

The fact that very good management is required is a sore point, says Ontario's Curtiss Littlejohn, who represents the Canadian Pork Council on the National Animal Farm Animal Care Committee.

That committee is revising the codes of practice for pork production. The codes are the expectations for animal welfare, as arrived at by consensus between farmers, veterinarians, scientists and government agencies. While the current rewriting isn't expected to address the issue of loose housing versus sow stalls, the question of space per pig is likely to be on the agenda.

Littlejohn has watched developments closely this past year as large pork customers such as McDonalds, Burger King and others, particularly south of the border, bent to pressure from activist groups such as the Humane Society of the United States and agreed to make changes to their pork-buying decisions based on how meat is produced.

The question remaining is how long it will be before these systems are phased out and how much pressure there is from some producers to keep the status quo. Littlejohn tells of a producer who recently built a new barn and insists he has no intention of changing it until it is worn out in 20 years. "Don't let the changes make me a criminal,' he told Littlejohn, who thinks producers have lost the battle to save gestation crate production systems.

Alternative production systems mean that pork will become more expensive in stores, Littlejohn says. "The experience in Europe will tell you that you need superior management in a properly designed barn. Poor barns and poor management will result in death and disaster." BP

Who is leading the push for a ban?

by DON STONEMAN

A ban on dry sow stall housing appears to be on the way – perhaps sooner, perhaps later. Will it be driven by customers, by government or by the industry itself?

That's a question that Stu DeVries, general manager of Total Swine Genetics and chairman of the Ontario Pork Industry Council (OPIC), is asking.

In Europe, the changes have come about because of legislation. In the United States, radical animal welfare and rights groups have led the charge, using a combination of legislation state by state. Changes have also been made as a result of intensive lobbying of large customers such as Burger King and McDonalds restaurants, along with countless others.

In Canada, so far, the initiative seems to be industry-led, DeVries says. He expects that a component of the Canadian Quality Assurance (CQA) program will be aimed at raising the welfare standards bar higher. It's not clear yet where that level will be.

In April, OPIC held a closed-door session on welfare issues, a sign that the topic is controversial. The session was closed so that industry people would feel free to talk. "There was nothing groundbreaking," DeVries says. Staffs of organizations and supplying companies were being informed "so that they can position themselves to be ready."

 He adds: "It is quite sensitive and there are a lot of strong opinions about this in the background in this country. If we are going to make changes, let's try to be right the first time." BP