Page 4 of articles about sow in Swine news

Preparatory work for the future development of animal based measures for assessing the welfare of sow, boar and piglet including aspects related to pig castration.

The size of the British pig breeding herd may slip below 418,000 sows (from 2007's 436,000 sows), causing pig producers to face a further period of negative margins, according to market analysts at the latest Outlook conference of the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board.

In 2001, the EU decided that all sows must be housed loose by 2013, giving the pig producers 12 years to adapt. In Denmark, this legislation was introduced in 1998. To form an impression of the situation in Denmark, Hatting-KS, the Danish Pig Producers’ Association and Pig Research Centre forwarded questionnaires to all Danish sow farmers with more than 100 sows asking them about their expectations of 2013.

After several hours of intense discussion and deliberation, the swine subcommittee for the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board decided to remove an exemption in its recommendations, that would have allowed existing swine producers to expand their stall-based facilities beyond 2025.

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator the Hon Kim Carr, has announced funding of $100 million for world-class collaborative research and innovation under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres.

Pig gestation stalls (sow crates) will be phased out by December 2015, Agriculture Minister David Carter announced.

The resource under the temporary state aid aimed to support the farmers from the pig and poultry breeding sector will be allocated for maximum absorption of the resources. The financial resource approved under the scheme amounts to BGN 3.48 million.

Despite improvements in daily liveweight gain and pigs finished per sow, Britain still lags behind its European competition in the production stakes. The latest figures from the BPEX publication on international cost of production show Britain produced 1643kg pig meat per sow in 2009 – the lowest of all the EU countries.

In a world first, the Australian pork industry voted today to pursue the voluntary phasing out of gestation stalls by 2017.

The State Government today urged pork producers to familiarise themselves with a new set of animal welfare regulations for the Western Australian pig industry.

At the European Union pigmeat price forecasting group in Brussels, the NPA's Barney Kay asked for each member country to indicate its level of preparedness for the 2013 partial stalls ban.

The results of a survey conducted in June this year indicated that nearly 70% of producers already keep pregnant sows in group systems, which is in line with the requirements of the EU legislation due in 2013.

In 2010 the number of breeding pigs increased by 1.4% to 427 thousand. The number of fattening pigs decreased by 2% to 3.2 million leading to an overall reduction of 1.6% in the total number of pigs.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is proposing to amend the livestock exportation regulations to eliminate pre-export tuberculosis and brucellosis testing for goats and breeding swine if the receiving country does not require such testing.

The Government of Canada is investing in an innovative project that will benefit Canadian swine producers and consumers. Coop fédérée will receive up to $80,000 to study and develop feeding recommendations to maximize sow milk production through gestation, ensuring optimal growth of suckling piglets.

Australia's pork industry will consider scrapping the use of sow stalls as long as it gets support from governments and retailers.