Small changes have a large impact on the profitability of the operation in regard to finishing facilities due to the length of it. 16 finishing facilities were audited with many achieving a score above 80% for the adoption of best management practices. An area for improvement is to supply enrichment as only two thirds did this. Also additional water availability and re-assessing pig sorting should be considered. The majority of the farms have wet/dry feeders which are known to increase pig performance. 50% used the feeder as the only water source in the pen. Adding one extra drinker has shown to increase average daily gain and feed efficiency while reducing average daily feed intake. Half of the barns sort pigs when transferred into the finishing barn. Finisher pigs do not benefit from sorting when fed ad libitum, but sorting by nutritional needs can be effective. This includes split-sex feeding and newly weaned pigs. Overall, best management practices are being implemented in finisher barns with areas of improvement being water availability, enrichment and sorting.
Finishing Facilities (full article)
