New farrowing pens without confinement of the sow

From an ethological point of view, freedom of movement is particularly important for sows during nest-building, farrowing, and the postparturient phase. Conventional farrowing crates, however, designed primarily to reduce the rate of piglet crushings, do not allow for this freedom of movement. Two types of farrowing pens without crates (FAT 1 and FAT 2) have been developed at the Swiss Federal Research Station far Agricultural Economics and Engineering (FAT). Reproduction performances of 127 litters born in crates (CRATE) and 45 born in either of the new farrowing pens do not show any significant differences in total losses (CRATE: 15.7%; FAT 1: 13.5%; FAT 2: 15.2%), nor does the number of crushings vary significantly (CRATE: 4.4%; FAT 1: 7.4%; FAT 2: 6.3%). However, the new pen types show a tendency towards higher rates of crushings, whereas the farrowing crates have a higher incidence of runts (CRATE: 7.5%; FAT 1: 2.1%; FAT 2: 5.0%). Capital expenditure for an eight pen farrowing chamber is only about 5% and 7% higher for the two newly developed pen types, FAT 1 and FAT 2, respectively, than for the farrowing crate. Daily working time requirements per saw (FAT 1: 7.01 MPmin; FAT 2: 6.95 MPmin) compare with those of standard systems used in practice (5.97 - 8.02 MPmin depending on the herd size, dung removal system, and type of feeding).