A bespoke ready-to-use nursery cabin has been delivered to a Yorkshire farmer. The container-style buildings, specifically developed to help pig producers rear surplus piglets from their sows, are manufactured by Suffolk housing and equipment company, Quality Equipment, at the company’s Woolpit works.

Andy Brown of A & M Farms Ltd, near Hull, ordered the nursery, having seen the system being employed on one of Rattlerow Farms’ 600-sow commercial units where it was saving, on average, the life of half a pig a litter.

The nurseries are available in various sizes and configurations to suit the individual farm requirement and Andy chose a single-room cabin divided into three separate pens each holding up to 28 pigs. Andy runs a 600-sow herd, batch farrowing around 70 sows every three weeks. The nursery was designed specifically to fit in with his system – allowing for one surplus pig per sow, with some extra capacity built in.