Investing In Animal Welfare Pays Off For German Piggery

With the welfare of farm animals under close scrutiny in Europe, farmers there are increasingly utilising technologies and systems that balance animals’ well-being with profitability. Lloyd Phillips recently toured a modern sow unit near Magdeburg in Germany to witness this approach first-hand.

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On a visit to a modern, trendsetting 2 400-sow unit near Magdeburg in the German state of SaxonyAnhalt, it is immediately evident that any pathogens wanting to get into this piggery will have a hard time trying. Only with prior approval are my guide and I allowed through the perimeter fence.

From here, we head straight into the reception building, where the piggery manager – from behind a hermetically sealed plate glass window – instructs us to place our electronic gadgets, notebooks and pens into a high tech box that decontaminates them using ultraviolet light.

He accesses our now-sterile items from his ‘clean’ side of the window and sends us on to the next stage. My guide and I undress, leaving our non-sterile personal clothing in a room, before proceeding to a shower to decontaminate our bodies. Stark naked, we emerge through the shower’s opposite door into another room where we get dressed into clean and decontaminated overalls and boots. Only now are we allowed into the piggery. The process will be repeated, but in reverse, when we leave.

BACKGROUND

Eight German pork producers established the sow unit near Magdeburg a few years ago to ensure a consistent supply of topquality, three-week-old, weaned piglets, produced under the best animal welfare conditions, for their businesses. This is according to a representative of the shareholders, who spoke to Farmer’s Weekly on condition of anonymity.

Construction of this green field facility began in 2014, and by early 2015 the first gilts were moved into their housing.

The sow unit is now fully operational and produces piglets for fattening and finishing off at 120kg live weight.