The Rural Voice, 2001-04, Page 28The
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24 THE RURAL VOICE
The pigs in Jack and Marg Kroes
Clinton -area finishing barn -like the
straw they get to sleep on.
loading and moving pigs. One side of
the aisle is the grower area, one the
finishing area. Moveable dividers are
installed at the aisle ends of the pens.
These shorten the pen by six feet
when the pigs are small, then are
moved back to allow more space
when the pigs grow.
Pens are bedded with straw in one
end and pigs are encouraged to dung
at the other. Pigs can be closed into
the bedded end of the pens using
swinging gates so that the dunging
area can be scraped down with a
tractor and loader.
Several curious people have
visited the barn over the years but'
Jack doesn't know of any who have
followed his lead.0
Lintons still
like their setup
Despite dire predictions of trouble
when they decided to build a barn to
group -house their sows, Dave and
Brenda Linton would do it again. In
fact they just might — as they
contemplate building a new straw -
based barn for their finishing hogs
too.
The Lintons built their group -
housing barn in the summer of 1997
after being influenced by the animal
welfare ideas Dr. Bernie Rollins from
the University of Colorado and Dr.
George Bergman, a veterinarian
from Cass County, Michigan.
The 40 -by -100 -foot, naturally
ventilated structure contains 12 pens
extending across the width of the
barn (except for an access alley on
one side). One end of the pen is used
as a feeding area. One end is bedded
with straw. The centre area is
recessed and is used as a dunging
area. This section of the pens is
separated by gates which can be
closed to confine the sows to one end
or the other of the pen while a tractor
scrapes down the area.
The barn has generally functioned
as conceived, Dave Linton said
recently. He had to make one
alteration by welding added bars on
the gates to reduce the opening after
one sow got its head stuck (ironically
while a CBC radio crew was
visiting). He's also added a large
shelf that allows a one-week supply
of straw to be brought in at a time.
One other modification has come
in management, where the Lintons
make greater use of catch boars to
determine pregnancy instead of
moving the sows out to crates for
pregnancy testing.
Generally though the barn has
accomplished just what it was
designed to do — provide a situation
as close as possible to an outdoor
setting within the better controlled
atmosphere of a barn. In summer,
with the curtains right up, "It's
almost like being outside except
there are no birds," said Dave in the
original April 1998 article in The
Rural Voice.
The Lintons are convinced their
sows are more contented in their
surroundings. They are kept in
groups of 10 through their gestation
cycle.
Their success is drawing interest.
Recently their operation was video
taped for a resource tape telling how
group housing works.
And the Lintons are so pleased
with the way the barn works they
looking at an extension to their barn
complex to try raising finishing pigs
on straw too.0
The Lintons' bam provides as close
to outdoors conditions as possible
with the control of indoors.