If you own a piggery farm, know that you need to find a way to produce a lot of piglets each year for profitability. However, this goal is not easy to achieve today because of high piglet mortality rate. There are a lot of factors that lead to piglet mortality. One of those factors is the absence of an important unit in the production center called a farrowing crate.
If you are just starting out, you may not have any idea of the importance of farrowing crates for female pigs. After birth, piglets struggle to survive and many of them die. As a result, you suffer a lot of financial loss.
So, if you are investing in pig farm equipment, we suggest that you get farrowing crates. Some of their benefits are listed below:
Cannibalism
If you have aggressive gilts, know that they may eat their piglets after giving birth to them. Actually, what happens is that they keep licking the navels of their babies until the piglets are torn apart. In this case, if there is a farrowing crate, it can help prevent the disaster.
Crushing
At times, it happens that the mother steps on her piglets while moving around after delivery. In some cases, she ends up falling asleep on her babies, which results in the death of most of the babies. So, it’s better to have this unit.
Births in Wallow
Here is another problem: if a pregnant sow is given full freedom to walk around, she may end up delivering the baby in the wallow. As a result, babies may die. So, having a farrowing crate can help prevent this type of incidents.
Lousy Sows
After delivery, it’s important for sows to breastfeed the newborns. However, some sows are too lazy to do that. Instead, they just lie in the wallow.
Diarrhoea
Piglets that are in search of water tend to eat filth and drink urine. If you have a well-designed farrowing crate, the mother pig won’t be able to access the feces and urine. To meet the needs of your animals, you can provide a separate drinker and feeder instead.
Biting Piglets
Piglets tend to bite other piglets, especially when they are about the weaning age. However, if they are crated, it may not happen.
Weaning Weight
When baby pigs approach their weaning age, they need to gain a lot of weight. If you provide a separate feeder and drinker for them, it will help them gain their weaning weight.
If you want to enjoy 99% production success, we suggest that you invest in quality pig farm equipment. Based on the number of breeding sows you own, make sure you get the right number of farrowing crates.
Having a poorly designed crate may cause a lot of problems, such as:
- Higher piglet mortality
- Foot Sores
- Diarrhoea
- Sow death
- Sow lameness
To cut a long story short, it’s important for you to invest in well-designed pig farming equipment if you are going to turn your business into a profitable one.
