Josep Casanovas

Curiously, when I started to think about it, what I had considered as my number one mistake for most of my professional life became the fifth in importance.

Lifting partitions in the farrowing unit allows piglets from different litters to mix, sharing teats and socializing.

Improving piglets' comfort in the farrowing pens by offering them more surface for resting.

By moving beads stringed in a wire we will record the amount of feed consumed.

Bearing welfare in mind, which should be the size of the group of animals housed in a pen?

With this aim, micro sprinklers soak periodically the area where we wish the animals to defecate.

Mating the stimulated sows eases the sperm transport to the oviduct, where they meet the ova.

Improve the piglets' comfort in the fattening rooms without compromising ventilation by placing an insulating material over the pens.

Using the year the sows enter in production for the sow's identification number.

There are different systems for carrying out this water delivery. Probably, the most common one is with a hose, but sometimes, the sows' troughs are not facing the corridor but the wall.

It consists in lengthening the towropes of the windows that we want to keep more open.

With a water tank above the pregnant sows cages we ensure their water supply.

In a system with 2.35 farrowings/sow/year, more than 14 piglets born per farrowing, more than 11 weaned piglets/farrowing and around 1% of losses at weaning; what can we do to improve this?

In many occasions, the location of the heat lamp very near to the head of the sow can bother her.

The author considers which is the ideal day for the mating and sets out the improvements in the results obtained when weaning on Monday.

We hold the legs of the piglets together with plastic straps, avoiding that they move apart from each other.