July 2012 - Iowa Pork Producers Association

Been there, doing that.A northeast Iowa producer’s experience with pen gestationSean Dolan built a breed-to-weansow unit in southeastern BuchananCounty in 1997. After 10 years, thecement water troughs were leaking,some of the 568 gestation stalls werestarting to create problems and he waslooking at major repairs. He made thedecision to convert to pen gestation.Dolan’s system has 98 farrowing crates,48 breeding stalls and 60 gilt stalls. He’sconsidering adding 70 more gilt stalls.The unit has two large gestation pens.One holds 210 of the older, larger andmore aggressive sows while the othercan house 195 bred gilts and parity oneand two females. He also has a smalltraining pen that helps acclimate bredgilts to the trickle feeding system.“Our sows are in stalls or a farrowingcrate for about 31 days out of a 145-day cycle,” Dolan said. “Gilts areprotected in stalls a little longer. Wetry not to introduce females into pensduring the implantation phase of theirgestation and keep the gilts away fromthe older, more aggressive sows.”The 2007 Master Pork Producer’s unitincludes an electronic tag readingstation, which helps in sorting andmarking for vaccination, and makesit one of the most unique systemsanywhere.“Pen gestation has allowed me to usemore technology with mobile recordkeepingand real-time data I can usewhen I’m in the barn,” Dolan said.“I’m the only one in the world withthis type of automatic gestationsystem that I’m aware of.”With the pen gestation system inplace for nearly five years, Dolansaid it has good and bad points. Headds it can be frustrating and thereare days he regrets converting to thepen system, especially when he hasto do a mass vaccination because it’sdangerous for him and his brotherwhen the sows are trying to avoidthem. He’s also experienced morelameness and increased mortalities.Dolan fears a major PRRS outbreakand how he would identify sows thataborted if it were to occur.“I think I’m giving up two pigsper sow [with pen gestation],”added Dolan. “We’re running realclose to what we were doing withgestation stalls, but with the geneticimprovement in the sows, we shouldbe doing better than that.”Dolan said his veterinarian said it best.“He said pigs are natural nesters andthe stall is their own nest,” Dolan said.“They don’t have that opportunityto have their own natural nest inmy system and they’re forced to beextremely social, even when theydon’t want to be. Gestation stalls areprobably more humane than the waywe have it.”The Coggin-area farmer has raisedpigs for nearly 16 years and has usedgestation stalls for most of his career.He said he can see the benefits of havinggestation stalls over pen housing.“I think it’s better for the pigs andbetter for the workers,” he said.“[Gestation stalls] need to have aplace in the pork industry.”That’s about as far as the positives onpen gestation go for Dolan.Sean Dolan converted his operation to pen gestation in 2007.JULY 201223