Farmscape for August 16, 2017

A Farm Building Consultant with FGC Construction says many pork producers making the switch to group sow housing are opting for a partial renovation combined with new construction.
A Group Sow Housing Seminar hosted by Swine Innovation Porc, CDPQ and the Prairie Swine Centre slated for September 12 in Winnipeg and September 13 in Strathmore will examine group sow housing options and potential opportunities associated with group sow housing.
Murray Elliott, a Farm Building Consultant with FGC Construction, says as producers look to comply with new Code of Practice requirements to move to group sow housing they're considering whether to build new barns or renovate existing facilities.

Clip-Murray Elliott-FGC Construction:
What we're seeing as the most common trend is new farrowing barns being built and the old farrowing barns being converted to dry sow and the old dry sow being converted to loose.
The existing farrowing tends to be too small, five by seven crates.
People are going to a six by eight floor space for farrowing.
The weaning days, people want to add to that usually and that requires more farrowing crates.
It's kind of a nice fit, if you can see your way clear to doing that.
Building a new farrowing barn allows you to, in most cases, keep production going because you can build a new farrowing barn and then go in and start renovating the old farrowing barn without disturbing production too much and then move on into the dry sow.
It kind of flows fairly nicely from keeping production going and getting the job done.

Elliott says these renovations have been quite successful and have improved productivity.
He says post build feedback from producers has been very positive.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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