Swine Research Farm Raalte an integrated organic pig farm with 100 sows. The farm has a section for sows and piglets and a section for finishing pigs. A three-week rotation is used, with groups of 12 sows each.
The section for sows and piglets consists of:
- 7 farrowing units, each with 6 farrowing pens;
- 2 sections for weaners, each with 8 pens;
- a weaned sows section;
- a pregnant sows section and
- a section for gilts.
The section for finishing pigs consists of:
3 pre-finishing units, each with 2 pens;
4 sections for finishing pigs: 3 with 8 pens and 1 with 4 pens.
Read more about the various sections and view the floor plans of the buildings.
Background
The two new barns were built in order to investigate various bottlenecks in organic pig farming. The existing, transitioning and new organic pig farms still encounter many problems in their daily operational management. These include problems in barn and pen design, nutrition, animal health care, farm hygiene, outdoor runs and pasturing.
Aim
The new buildings are used to test whether a farm design is feasible according to organic farming regulations and where there are uncertainties. Attention is paid to working conditions, which are generally more demanding than in conventional pig farming. This is due, for example, to the use of straw, which leads to more dust in the buildings, but it is also due to the fluctuating climate conditions inside and outside the buildings where organic pig farmers work.
Pigs in ComfortClass
The ComfortClass barn is a project barn for conventional finishing pigs. In this building, finishing pigs are housed according to a new concept based on the welfare of the pig.
Read more at www.comfortclass.nl.
Use of small wind turbines in pig farming
The modern character of the Raalte farm also lends itself to research into sustainable energy sources for the pig farming sector. The Netherlands has the target of obtaining 9% of national electricity production from sustainable sources in 2010. Wind energy can provide a large proportion of this sustainable energy. To achieve this aim, national and regional governmental bodies have signed an administrative agreement on the national development of wind energy (BLOW). In this agreement, the provinces have establish targets for the realised capacity of terrestrial wind energy in 2010. However, in recent years, the resistance of society to wind energy has grown steadily. Concerns about noise pollution, landscape disturbance and hazards for birds are frequently referred to during objection procedures. Almost without exception, these concerns involve large wind turbines with a capacity of at least 1 MW. Due to the objections, the long procedural route which the initiators have taken becomes even longer.
Because small turbines do not have many of these disadvantages, they can be an attractive alternative. To investigate the potential of small wind turbines and to acquire experience, the province of Overijssel (Europe Desk) has provided funding to build two small wind turbines on the Raalte farm. The aim is to acquire insight into the technical and financial possibilities of using small-scale wind turbines on a farm, in this case a pig farm, and to enable other farmers to benefit from these experiences.
Click here for more projects on the Raalte farm.