The Rural Voice, 1998-04, Page 50feeding method so far. They're also
experimenting with a practice some
might find controversial — throwing
a little hay into the pens in the
evening. The pigs seem to love the
hay, munching away contentedly for
a long time. After feeding the hay,
Dave says, the barn sounds like its
full of cattle — or kids chewing gum.
While hay in pigs' stomachs can't be
broken down like it can be in the
stomach of a ruminant, it provides
roughage and enlarges the stomach,
which seems to allow them to eat
more. Besides, the amount of hay
used is small and he expects his stack
of 40 bales to last a long time.
Despite using a solid manure
system, Dave says the
cleaning is not time-
consuming with this design. There is
a small amount of manual scraping
where about two feet of bedding next
to the dunging area gets fouled but
this allows him to be in the pens with
his animals — a good management
tool. Other than that, it takes about a
half hour twice a week with the
tractor to clean the barn.
The Lintons' experience with the
barn is still in its early days and they
hesitate to make definitive statements
about performance yet but there are
aspects they're pleased with so far.
Dave says it used to bother him with
sows confined to stalls that when
they were moved to farrowing crates
they were not steady on their feet
because of lack of exercise. In the
group pens, however, thcy get plenty
of exercise and even when heavy
with piglets they
can still move
well. Their overall
conditioning
seems to be better,
he says.
The most
notable change has
been seen in the
amount of
antibiotic
treatment they
need to give their
baby pigs. With
the mixing of the
sows they seem to mix their
immunity and they pass on this
immunity to their young, Dave
explains. Brenda, who handles the
medicinal treatment of the piglets,
says at one time every little pig
automatically got antibiotics to
prevent scours. Now, with a new
concern they have about over treat-
ment, they treat only the pigs that
need it — only about I0 per cent of
the pigs. Even many of those that do
have mild problems, seem to recover
themselves without treatment.
The Lintons' concern for not
overusing
antibiotics is part
of the same new
outlook on their
operation that led
to this barn. They
participated last
year in testing
Ontario Pork's
Quality Assurance
program, part of
which dealt with
proper admin-
istration of
medical treatment
Dave Linton feeds a bit of hay to his
sows. They seem to love it.
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46 THE RURAL VOICE
for stock, proper storage of medicine
and proper withdrawal times before
shipping.
There's no easy recipe for this
kind of farming — no manual to pull
off the shelf that tells you how to
deal with problems that come up,
Dave says. The family is still
learning how to manage this barn.
They've learned they can have
problems if they have too few sows
in a pen. They're also considering
moving toward batch farrowing
.because it's important that all 10
sows in a given pen farrow within a
week of each other. As it is, when it
comes time to move the pen of sows
to the farrowing barn some will go
immediately to crates, if they're close
to term, while others will go stalls
until they're ready for crates.
The Lintons say they're still
working to get the bugs out of the
management of their system but are
pleased with the early results. In fact,
ever experimenting, they ran a group
of barrows through the barn using the
pens for finishing pens and were
delighted with the results. "There's
no suffering with performance in a
barn like that," Dave says.
No doubt the experimentation will
go on as the Lintons seek a system
that fits their needs, not adapting
themselves to the needs of a pre -
designed system.()