What are some practical tips for raising pigs in winter? A detailed explanation of key feeding and management points
Winter pig-raising tips
In winter, the outside climate is cold. If management is not strengthened, pigs will grow more slowly or become ill, which has a great impact on pig production. In winter feeding and management, the following 4 points should be achieved.
1. Repair the pig house. Before the severe cold of winter arrives, a comprehensive inspection and maintenance of the pig house should be carried out, and damaged pens, walls, and roofs should be repaired. To increase the insulation effect, open-style pig houses should have plastic insulation sheds built, windows and excess vents should be sealed, and cotton curtains and straw curtains should be hung at the doorway to prevent cold wind from entering.
2. Keep the house sanitary, dry, and fresh in air. In winter, to keep warm, ventilation intensity is reduced, which leads to excessively high humidity inside the house and the retention of too much harmful gas. Excessively high humidity inside the house and too much harmful gas will induce respiratory diseases and other diseases in pigs, so manure inside the house should be removed frequently, a good sanitary environment should be maintained, indoor humidity should be reduced, and the concentration of harmful gas produced by accumulated manure should be lowered. On the premise of maintaining temperature, increase ventilation volume, keep the air inside the house as fresh as possible, and reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases induced by excessive harmful gas.
3. Increase the temperature inside the house. Too low a house temperature brings severe cold stress to the pig herd. Cold stress will lower the health level of the pig herd and induce some diseases, with an even greater impact on piglets. A cold environment will worsen diarrhea in piglets, thereby leading to an increase in piglet mortality. There are many ways to raise the house temperature, such as using hot-air furnaces, coal stoves, heating, and other equipment to provide a heat source to raise the house temperature, or appropriately increasing stocking density and relying on the body heat released by the pig herd itself to raise the house temperature (suitable for finishing pigs), etc.
4. Feed high-quality diets and improve feeding methods. In the cold winter, providing the pig herd with a nutritionally complete diet is especially important. Farmers can, according to the body weight of the pigs raised in their own pig farm, reasonably choose premix suitable for pigs of each age group. Icy feed has a greater impact on the pig herd in winter, so feed dry powder feed as much as possible, or use warm water to mix the feed for feeding. Where conditions permit, clean warm water should be provided for pigs to drink freely. In winter, the days are short and the nights are long, and the pig herd fasts for a long time at night, so an extra nighttime feeding should be added at night, so that pigs can consume enough nutritionally complete diet, which helps increase daily weight gain and shorten the feeding cycle.
1. Keep warm
In the cold winter, insulation facilities should be installed inside the house, especially in farrowing rooms and nursery houses. The farrowing room should be maintained at around 28 degrees, and the temperature difference between day and night should not exceed 3 degrees. A large temperature difference can easily cause diarrhea in piglets, so management personnel must check the house temperature at night. The person firing the boiler is the most important, and must not be lazy at night. In addition, the thermometer should be placed at a position roughly level with the pig herd, and special attention should be paid to the fact that the thermometer must not be placed near heating equipment, because the temperature measured that way will be inaccurate. Usually, the hot and cold state of the pigs can be judged by observing the condition of the pig herd. When the pig herd huddles together severely, it is a reminder that you should raise the temperature!
2. Increase stocking density
In winter, for finishing pig houses without heating facilities, the number of pigs raised inside the house can be increased by 1/3 to 1/2 compared with usual, so that pigs warm each other with body heat. More pigs release more heat, which has a certain effect on raising the house temperature.
3. Keep the pig house dry
The higher the humidity in the pig house, the colder the pigs feel, and it also helps accelerate bacterial reproduction, easily causing skin diseases, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, and parasitic diseases in pigs, etc. First, pigs should be trained to defecate at fixed points, water flushing of pens should be reduced or avoided, the frequency of dry manure cleaning should be increased, and reasonable and effective disinfectants should be selected to appropriately reduce the number of disinfection times.
4. Appropriately increase the content of energy feed in the feed.
5. Prevent the invasion of drafty wind and reduce the occurrence of swine influenza.
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The farrowing room should be maintained at around 28 degrees, and the sow's feed intake will certainly decrease. Reaching 15 degrees would already be good. Theoretically, 20 degrees is best.
1. Repair the pig house. Before the severe cold of winter arrives, a comprehensive inspection and maintenance of the pig house should be carried out, and damaged pens, walls, and roofs should be repaired. To increase the insulation effect, open-style pig houses should have plastic insulation sheds built, windows and excess vents should be sealed, and cotton curtains and straw curtains should be hung at the doorway to prevent cold wind from entering.
2. Keep the house sanitary, dry, and fresh in air. In winter, to keep warm, ventilation intensity is reduced, which leads to excessively high humidity inside the house and the retention of too much harmful gas. Excessively high humidity inside the house and too much harmful gas will induce respiratory diseases and other diseases in pigs, so manure inside the house should be removed frequently, a good sanitary environment should be maintained, indoor humidity should be reduced, and the concentration of harmful gas produced by accumulated manure should be lowered. On the premise of maintaining temperature, increase ventilation volume, keep the air inside the house as fresh as possible, and reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases induced by excessive harmful gas.
3. Increase the temperature inside the house. Too low a house temperature brings severe cold stress to the pig herd. Cold stress will lower the health level of the pig herd and induce some diseases, with an even greater impact on piglets. A cold environment will worsen diarrhea in piglets, thereby leading to an increase in piglet mortality. There are many ways to raise the house temperature, such as using hot-air furnaces, coal stoves, heating, and other equipment to provide a heat source to raise the house temperature, or appropriately increasing stocking density and relying on the body heat released by the pig herd itself to raise the house temperature (suitable for finishing pigs), etc.
4. Feed high-quality diets and improve feeding methods. In the cold winter, providing the pig herd with a nutritionally complete diet is especially important. Farmers can, according to the body weight of the pigs raised in their own pig farm, reasonably choose premix suitable for pigs of each age group. Icy feed has a greater impact on the pig herd in winter, so feed dry powder feed as much as possible, or use warm water to mix the feed for feeding. Where conditions permit, clean warm water should be provided for pigs to drink freely. In winter, the days are short and the nights are long, and the pig herd fasts for a long time at night, so an extra nighttime feeding should be added at night, so that pigs can consume enough nutritionally complete diet, which helps increase daily weight gain and shorten the feeding cycle.
1. Keep warm
In the cold winter, insulation facilities should be installed inside the house, especially in farrowing rooms and nursery houses. The farrowing room should be maintained at around 28 degrees, and the temperature difference between day and night should not exceed 3 degrees. A large temperature difference can easily cause diarrhea in piglets, so management personnel must check the house temperature at night. The person firing the boiler is the most important, and must not be lazy at night. In addition, the thermometer should be placed at a position roughly level with the pig herd, and special attention should be paid to the fact that the thermometer must not be placed near heating equipment, because the temperature measured that way will be inaccurate. Usually, the hot and cold state of the pigs can be judged by observing the condition of the pig herd. When the pig herd huddles together severely, it is a reminder that you should raise the temperature!
2. Increase stocking density
In winter, for finishing pig houses without heating facilities, the number of pigs raised inside the house can be increased by 1/3 to 1/2 compared with usual, so that pigs warm each other with body heat. More pigs release more heat, which has a certain effect on raising the house temperature.
3. Keep the pig house dry
The higher the humidity in the pig house, the colder the pigs feel, and it also helps accelerate bacterial reproduction, easily causing skin diseases, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, and parasitic diseases in pigs, etc. First, pigs should be trained to defecate at fixed points, water flushing of pens should be reduced or avoided, the frequency of dry manure cleaning should be increased, and reasonable and effective disinfectants should be selected to appropriately reduce the number of disinfection times.
4. Appropriately increase the content of energy feed in the feed.
5. Prevent the invasion of drafty wind and reduce the occurrence of swine influenza.
---------------------
The farrowing room should be maintained at around 28 degrees, and the sow's feed intake will certainly decrease. Reaching 15 degrees would already be good. Theoretically, 20 degrees is best.