Farmscape for September 5, 2017

A Research Scientist with the Prairie Swine Centre says the adoption of group sow Housing has tended to vary depending on location.
Canada's new Pig Code of Practice calls on pork producers to move from stall housing of gestating sows to group housing by 2024.
A Group Sow Housing Seminar set for September 12 in Winnipeg and September 13 in Strathmore will look at research conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc through the National Sow Housing Conversion Project.
Dr. Jennifer Brown, a research Scientist Ethology with the Prairie Swine Centre, says we've seen some real differences across the country in the adoption of group housing.

Clip-Dr. Jennifer Brown-Prairie Swine Centre:
I saw initially more group housing being installed in the east where most farms are quite a bit smaller in size.
Those producers, especially in Quebec, started a number of years ago in doing renovations.
Certainly a lot of them are in stalls but we did see more activity in the east earlier on.
Then it's kind of taken off in Ontario in the last couple of years.
In western Canada we haven't seen quite as much renovation.
Our barns are, in general, bigger in size and a lot of these building haven't received a lot of upkeep when hog prices were low so I think western producers, a lot of them, have held off and waited to see what the best systems are and thinking about it in a serious way before they make the leap.
Certainly we've seen quite a lot of renovations done by Maple Leaf in Manitoba.
HyLife has done a very nice initial renovation and is making plans for more and Olymel is making plans.
Among the Hutterite Colonies, that is where we've seen the most activity in western Canada in the number of new buildings and renovations for group housing.

Dr. Brown says we're seeing some differences across the country but some early adopters are using group housing and have been for years.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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