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Masonville, Iowa | I will try to 'splain it. We have about 625 to 650 sows. Up until last summer the gestation area consisted of 4 rows of 112 stalls. The stalls were starting to show some age. Front feet were wearing down and the feed tubes were rusting and I wasn't getting the right amount of feed to correct sow. The cement water/feed troughs were also starting to leak so I wanted to do something. The stalls were only 22" wide and I thought that was too narrow to replace with the same system. So....
We tore out the stalls and went with a large pen system. We now have two large pens which split the area where the stalls were. Each pen has feed/loafing area and a water court. In the feeding area we feed the sows with a trickle feed system. The feed boxes drop feed into a 2nd feed line. The auger in the second feed line turns at 4.5 RPMS and delivers about .25# per minute. The idea is that the feed is delivered slow enough that the boss sows don't get a benefit from trying to go to another station to rob feed. To get to the water court the sows must pass through one-way gates and the only way to get back to the feed area is to go through the sorter. The sorter has a series of eyes to detect when a sow enters it closes the back gate and activates the panel reader to read the tag in the sows left ear. Once the tag is read, if no tasks are asssigned to that tag, the front gate opens and the sow walks into the feed area. I can set up tasks to sort light sows into the small feeding area where they get fed heavier or sort piggy sows out into the alley so thatI can load them in the farrowing house. I also have the ability to mark sows for vaccination/preg checking. The sorter also marks sows with a different color if they have lost the tag or the tag is not read.
We group breed every other week in breed stalls and then kick the sows into one of these pens the day after they come out of estrus. The small pen is 40' X 92' and can feed up to 196 sows and the large pen is 40 X 218 and can feed up to 248 sows.
Cost for our remodel project was right around $300 per space. This price included an entiely new chain and disk automated feed system for the whole barn and I replaced 104 50/50 gang slats with 100% slotted slats.
Hope this explains most of it.
Sean
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 one-way gate.jpg (30KB - 455 downloads)
small side.jpg (46KB - 441 downloads)
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