Piglet nursery proves its worth - Pig World November 2015 - Quality Equipment

Piglet nursery proves its worth - Pig World

A purpose-built piglet nursery on a Suffolk farm has saved enough piglets to improve returns by more than £79,000 in just a year.

When Rattlerow Farms installed the portable, container-style nursery on its 600-sow commercial unit at Hill House Farm, Stradbroke, it estimated that it would enable the farm to rear about 700 extra pigs annually. In fact, this prediction was almost spot-on.

Agrosoft records show that average numbers born alive from the prolific Whiteland sows have been remarkably consistent at between 13.5 and 13.7 during the past three years. However, since the delivery of the nursery, designed and built by Quality Equipment, mortality has fallen dramatically with a proportional rise in numbers reared.

Sows are farrowed in batches of 80 every three weeks, and farrowing house manager Jamie Brown weans litters of heavier piglets early to enable the sows to foster smaller pigs. This is normally done at eight to 10 days, but they have been successful in rearing pigs as early as five days.

Transition Feeders within the nursery enable the pigs to be given warm milk initially, then a variety of specialist diets, both wet and dry, as they grow. A trial compared the post-weaning performance of piglets from the farrowing house against piglets reared through the nursery, recording their weights at the weaning age of 28 days and then again 13 days later.

Although the piglets from the nursery were initially lighter than the average from the farrowing house, during the trial period they gained 1.66kg more and finished heavier at 11.54kg, compared with 11.11kg from the farrowing house, an increase of 128g/day/pig across 980 pigs.

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Paneltim Sparks Electrical Idea

14 October 2022

A new use has been found for Paneltim the plastic panel normally used for pig-pen divisions, according to Suffolk-based Quality Equipment. A local engineering company has successfully employed the material to protect external electrical cables from the weather.

For various reasons the wiring could not be incorporated within the building but the Paneltim – which is strong, lightweight, and weather-proof proved to provide an ideal solution. Using their special Paneltim welding equipment, QE made up a seamless 1200mm x 1500mm x 400mm deep box-like enclosure that fitted neatly on the side of the building.

Producer confidence shown at Pig Fair

14 October 2022

Pig producers still have confidence in the future of the British pig industry judging by the plans for re-investment in housing and equipment that will improve efficiency. That’s the feedback Quality Equipment received at the British Pig & Poultry Fair.

“From dry sows through to finishing, there was interest across the whole spectrum of our equipment and building services, which was encouraging to see”, commented QE director Graham Baker.

QE raises thousands of pounds

14 October 2022

Suffolk-based pig building and equipment company, Quality Equipment, has raised £12,810 for the East Anglian Air Ambulance, the charity which provides a helicopter emergency medical service for people in East Anglia.

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