Farrowing pens are the most important pens on the farm. They must be designed to ensure that the sow and her piglets are kept at the right temperature for the first 7 to 10 days after birth, while being as protected as possible from trampling and crushing.
Recommendation for the construction of a farrowing area
It contains five or six farrowing pens. The length of a five-pen barn should be 11 meters and a six-pen barn should be 12.8 meters. The width is 5.8 meters in both cases. Each stall is 2.4 x 1.8 meters, with a 1-meter wide feed aisle on the north side of the stall and a 1-meter wide manure aisle on the south side. The entrance must be located on the short side of the building, with a space of 1 meter between the outer wall and the first piggery. This space is connected to the feed and manure aisles. The diagram on the following page shows the layout of a typical farrowing pen.
Each pen must have a farrowing pen in which the sows are kept from the week before the piglets' birth until they are weaned at 28 or 35 days of age.
The farrowing pen is placed inside the pen, leaving about 1 meter of space on one side and 0.5 meter on the other. The feed trough for feed and water (500 mm long and 200 mm high) is located on the side of the feed aisle of the pen. If there is water in the farrowing house, a water spout can be placed above the feed trough.
There must be windows on both sides of the farrowing house (on both sides of the long wall) for ventilation and cooling. The temperature in the sow holding area (in the farrowing pens) should preferably not be higher than approx. 21 °C.
