Rant: Farrowing crates in California
CNN is posting ballot initiative results from around the country. One caught my attention:
California approved an initiative to outlaw the confinement of pregnant pigs, calves raised for veal and egg-laying hens “in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely.”
I remember when we moved to a farm near Everly, IA, about 1968. This farm had a decent two-story frame house, and sizable, if older, outbuildings (barn, granary, machine shed, etc.) The ‘hog house’ had been adapted and built up inside, so it had an alley way through it, but had a bunch of small pens build of scrap wood, mostly to the ceiling. Dad gutted the building to a set of good 4×4 upright supports down the (wide) alley way, lined the walls with plywood, hung 2″ styrofoam for a ceiling (Iowa winters get cold), and put in a propane heater. Then put ‘farrowing crates’ along the walls on each side of the alley way, I think about 5 or 6 on each side. Pride of the Farm brand crates, that narrowed at the top a bit so the top bars were too narrow for an excited sow to climb out. Later we added another eight crates to take up about 2/3rds the length of the hog house.
The farrowing crates were fairly open, pipes and bars to contain the sow from the time she gave birth to a litter of baby pigs – the goal was an average litter size of 8 pigs grown to weaning, sometimes up to 14 pigs in a single litter - until the pigs got to two (2) to five (5) weeks old, depending on whether we needed the space right away for a new litter.
From the wording that CNN reports, the California initiative would ban the practice of using farrowing crates.
Dad turned the sows out twice a day to feed, drink, move about – and let us clean the crate. And doctor the pigs if need be. About an hour, hour and a half each time.
See, the crate was big enough for a really big, older sow to stand up, move forward and back a food or two, depending on age/size (Dad kept sows for breeding for a couple of years, then replaced them, so they never got really big). There was plenty of room for the sow to lay and nurse, to either side. Between crates we used divider boards to keep the baby pigs separate from neighbor pigs. A crate was about 5-6 feet wide, from divider on the left to divider on the right, with the sow portion about 1/3 to 2/5 of that width, located in the center.
We put a heat lamp over the pigs in winter or cool weather (spring, fall), pig waterers and creep feeders for the pigs to take stress off the sow, and to supplement feed to assure each grew well and quickly.
And we used the crates to make raising pigs profitable. See, left in the pasture, or in a traditional square pen, the sow lays down next to a wall or partition – and often smothers one or more pigs. Sometimes daily. Keeping the baby pigs alive to survive the pre-weaning days and weeks made the year to raise the sow to breeding age, the cost of procuring a breeding boar, the cost of feeding all of them, the cost of providing facilities for breeding and farrowing in line. If you only average 6 pigs per litter, at weaning, because either the boar you used threw small litters, or the sows laid on (killed) half their piglets, then you lose money big time. And a *lot* less bacon, ham, and pork chops get to market.
If the California tree-huggers truly want to ban farrowing crates, as my father used them, then they are truly intent on destroying the ability to produce pork in that state. Anyone but a backyard garden farmer, raising a pig to butcher for home use, will be put out of business.
Perhaps it is time for the rest of the nation to consider a tree-hugger embargo. Refuse to ship products to California that would be uneconomical if produced under California law. Let them eat Cauliflower.
I understand that a farrowing crate could, with little difficulty, be turned into a confinement crate that the pig enters before farrowing, and leaves only when the pigs are weaned. And I would cringe at that.
Tags: California, CNN, Farrowing, Farrowing Crate, Tree Hugger
I have been on the internet looking for a design to build a farrowing crate. W have a small barn in which I want to build a crate for my pigs I have three whom are due to farrow soon. I have watched some of the videos and seen alot of the information on the internet about pig farms. I do not agree with animal cruelty but also like to eat meat. PETA People for the ethical treatment of animals doesn’t want people to own animals they want all animals freed and for no one to enslave animals… Well I believe and am teaching my children that god put these animals here for our use… We raise pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and cows. My children are tough to raise our animals with care an compassion. My daughters pig for 4-H developed a hernia right before fair and we had to have him butchered. My husband felt bad because when I brought him off the trailer he came to his name and followed me into the chute to be killed. He had no clue about what was going to happen. I patted him on the back and told him I would pick him up in a few weeks. When I came back he was wrapped in nice little white packages.. Well every time that we eat bacon we remember Pea who gave his life in order for us to have life… Pea would have died due to his hernia we had him to the vet and the gut was twisted. His sisters molly and Margret are going to have babies now one next week and one in April. So life goes on and we will eat some of there babies!!!! Will some of the babies die maybe if I can not get a crate built in time…. Because pigs lay on there babies. They are so large they can not figure out where all the babies are and lay down on them there body mass is so large that they crush them…. Hence the farrowing crate to protect the babies and give them some place safe to be. I am sure that if Molly has her babies in the barn with the rest of the pigs, some of them would be eaten by the other pigs or would be lost in the 3 feet of snow in their yard.
Jayme, thanks for visiting.
It has been near 40 years since I left high school, and Dad’s hog farm. He used about 10 Pride of the Farm crates, and 6 if another brand. We cemented in the floor of the building to clean between bunches, and fumigated each time we emptied the building – took up the crates, hosed them off, cleaned, and fumigated. We hung 2″ styrofoam for a suspended ceiling, and paneled over the walls with light plywood. Heat was a propane heater, but never really warm.
The crates used 1×12 floor boards, both to keep the crate in place , and to keep the sow off the cement floor. The sides of the sow part were high and low rails, with vertical pickets. The pickets weren’t particularly close together, maybe 6″ space? The rails weren’t adjustable. The top rail was about 36″, the bottom about 7-9″ somewhere. The crate was about 6 foot long.
The frame in front and behind the sow on the Pride of the Farm had a peak in the center of the top. Rails ran near the top from front to back, so a sow could not rear up and flip over, or climb out of the crate. The other brand crates had a removable rack that clamped onto the top side rails for a sow that was anxious, fighting the crate, etc.
The door on the pride of the farm was a removable hatch, a wire panel on a frame made of the same pipe as the rest of the frame; it had a low cross-bar longer than the door was wide that dropped into clips mounted about the same height as the bottom side rails, so the door tilted back to open. There was a sliding latch on the door to clip over the crate frame, to hold the door in place. The other crates had a side-hinged door.
The Pride of the Farm crates let the sow back all the way up to the back door. We stuck a 2×4 through the last picket, to hold her 6 inches from the door. This reduced wear on the door, and kept her from trying to farrow while mashing her back end against something solid. The other crates had a 2″ band of heavy steel, formed into a squared bumper, fastened to the door, for the same reason.
Both crates used 2″ spaced 1/4″ pickets for the front panel, with cross bars. The Pride of the Farm might have use a 1″ top and bottom band, and 1/8″ or 3/16″ pickets.
The crates were made to bolt together in a series. Between the sow parts was a front and back panel to keep the pigs in. That might have been 24 or 30 inches high, but not as tall as the side panels in the crate, I don’t think. Too low, though, might invite the sow to jump into the side part.
We put a 1×10 or 1×12 for a divider between crates, with another 6 inch board on time, I think. These boards helped block breezes, and gave a place to hang baby pig waterers and feeders. We usually hung a heat lamp, infrared, with real heat lamp fixtures (ceramic sockets) intended for 250 watt bulbs. When born, the lamp hung fairly low, and we raised it as they got older, needed less heat, and got big enough to bang the light around. We used wood shavings for bedding for the pigs, for preference, straw or ground corn cobs if we had to. Usually the shavings had less dust.
Dad turned the sows out together for an hour, morning and night, pushed them outside, fed them in a trough or at a self-feeder, and automatic waterer. I think much of PETA’s griping is about the people that install waterers and feeders in the crate, then don’t have to turn the sow out at all until the pigs are ready to wean.
Except in winter, Dad pastured his hogs. The constant exercise and grass (alfalfa) with his feeding program usually got pigs to market quickly at good weight. One bunch was 5 months, 2 days. Our of 120 or so, maybe 40 were estimated 180 pounds or more. D That batch, like most of the hogs Dad sold, graded really well, about $1.50 a hundred weight, sold yield and grade. A half dozen went from 220 to 250. We didn’t have any pets, usually, but the pigs were well cared for. Our neighbors thought Dad silly, giving up alfalfa ground (10-15 acres) for hog pasture. But the hogs did well. We rotated the pasture every two years. Either put up fence in the spring, or take it down in the fall. Again, the rotation was manage disease, and the pasture was part of the crop rotation on the 1/4 section family farm.
Dad left a radio playing quietly in the hog house. A talk radio station from Yankton, South Dakota, I think. When we checked the pigs before going to bed, in case one started farrowing, the only light was the heat lamps, and mostly no noise except the hogs breathing. With the shavings for the baby pigs, it was one peaceful scene. Usually, just keeping reasonably quiet was enough, that we could slip in, look around, and leave – without disturbing any of them.
Dad kept a clip board, recording date of farrowing, the crate number, number of pigs. And marked off any losses. Since we had crates on either side of the wide (maybe 10-12 foot) central aisle, he numbered the sows on the north side with red paint, and green on the south. The number was sprayed on with a spray can, in big numbers, over the lower back. That way you could mark her while she stood in her crate, you could put the right sow back in the right crate where her litter waited. Most sows quickly learned which crate was hers, after an hour outside most were ready for some heavy duty nursing, and would bark to be let back into the crate.
We farrowed three times a year, and kept sows for two years. We sold the older sows off before they got *big* adult size – the thinking was they would eat more to maintain weight, and wouldn’t produce any healthier pigs, or more, than a young gilt. Dad rotated breeds, always used purebred stock – Duroc, Spotted Poland China, Chester White, Hampshire – were the ones he usually used, depending on what characteristics he wanted to see in the next litters. We kept gilts back when getting ready to turn over the older sows.
Back to the farrowing crates. You might check for TSC catalogs to see of you can find one, or your feed store – or ask around, if someone is using crates you can look at that you could take some pictures and measurements.
I did a Google search on “farrowing crate” – there seem to be a number of brands and sources. Check those, too, for specifications, dimensions, and illustrations.
The crates I have seen were steel. A hog can be a very strong critter when they get irritated or anxious, such as their first time in a crate. I imagine you could make one of wood, but you would have to be pretty careful about strength and how you fasten it together. I suppose you could use 2×4 pickets for the side panels, with 1/4″ carriage bolts, but that would provide less air flow around the sow and pigs. And a reasonable amount of air flow helps keep down ammonia, and suppresses many diseases.
Luck!