With so much emphasis on sow comfort, work continues on how to make them even more comfortable. Research shows gestating sows can benefit from narrower slat and gap widths in slatted concrete flooring.
As part of research conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc scientists with the University of Manitoba examined the effect of narrowing the slat and gap widths of slatted concrete flooring on manure handling and the well being of group-housed gestating sows.
Dr. Qiang Zhang, a professor in Biosystems Engineering with the University of Manitoba, said the work would be useful in helping select floor configurations for loose housed sows.
Typically the slatted floor has a slat and the slot, so that dictates the drainage of the manure.
“In North America, producers use this five-inch, one-inch combination. One of the questions is, would this combination work for all sizes of pigs,” said Dr. Zhang.
“Most of the farms we saw, based it on the growing-finishing pigs and we don’t have any standard for designing slatted floors for gestation sows. So we did a study with the different floor configurations.” Dr. Zhang said this particular component of the project had two phases. The first phase took place in a lab where they build a corridor with a different floor configuration. “We had sows walk on the corridor, videotaped all the sows movements and based on that we came out with the best combination of the slat and the slot width. That combination is four and a quarter inches of slat width and three-quarters of gap width. That’s a little bit narrower than the commonly used five-inch slat with a one-inch gap, so that’s phase one,” he said.
“So based on the phase one study we moved into phase two in which we put the new floor in two rooms. One room with the traditional five inches one-inch floor, and the other room with the new floor. That’s four and a quarter inch and three-quarter inch of gap. So now we put sows into these two rooms and basically did a straight direct comparison of the sow performance and also the air quality in these two rooms.”
Short answer, there’s no difference between the two rooms regarding sow performance and air quality.
“We did notice fewer foot lesions in the narrow floored room. And air quality was identical in the two rooms,” he said. “That means the narrow gap did not affect actual manure drainage and the floor cleanliness and the sow cleanliness are identical. Statistically, there’s no difference between the two rooms,” said Dr. Zhang. “The reason why people use slatted floors is to drain the manure. Because the concrete is hard if you have a slot, the edge is pretty sharp, causing problems for the sows.”
Dr. Lori Connor at the University of Manitoba led this project including student technicians and people from Prairie Swine Center.
Dr. Zhang hopes now with the just-released results the producers would pick it up, and also the floor manufacturing companies. Because everybody at this point uses the standard floor design and without much scientific evidence behind it, so the results will help producers decide what floor they would use for loose housing systems for gestation sows.
“This study was just to pick up one problem on floor design for gestation sows, but there’s a lot more to do,” he said. “We’re following up on this study with a different floor covering system to look at the hardness of the floor on the foot health of sows.” •
— By Harry Siemens
