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A decision support tool to evaluate sow housing options
Housing gestating sows in individual stalls is commonplace across the pork industry. However, due to increased consumer scrutiny of this management practice and legislative mandates in some states, pork producers are faced with changing their gestation housing system from individual stalls to group housing. Previous work completed by Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) indicated that a leading educational priority for pork producers was the need to compare the initial investment and subsequent operating costs for different types of group housing options. A Sow Housing Options Tool (SHOT) was developed for users to compare either different group housing systems or different options for a particular group housing system. The SHOT is a capitalization model that uses a producer’s current sow productivity to model the number of pigs produced per year which is used to evaluate how changes in gestation housing may alter the farm’s annual pig production. The SHOT provides the user examples for five possible group housing options; 1. Floor feeding, 2. Non-gated stalls, 3. Trickle feeding, 4. Electronic Sow Feeding and 5. Free Access Stalls. The user will enter present feed and operating costs to develop their current cost of production. Furthermore the user will enter current interior building dimensions or proposed interior building dimensions along with the overall interior space allocation per sow. In addition, the user will also enter estimates of either remodeling costs or new construction costs for different gestation housing options under consideration. The model will account for different depreciation rates for different capital input costs. This will provide a more realistic estimated cost of production when comparing different group sow housing options. For new construction, the user will input cost estimates provided by contractors and equipment manufacturers. For remodeling projects, SHOT will determine if current production can be maintained without subsequent building additions based on user inputs. The SHOT will also estimate the amount of additional space needed to maintain current productivity if a production shortfall is anticipated. The model will subsequently estimate the total cost for each proposed gestation sow housing scenario as well as estimate the projected annual operational cost on a per sow and per pig weaned basis. The model is flexible and will allow pork producers the opportunity to override certain aspects of the model based on their current productivity or cost of production estimates. The SHOT is available from MSUE.
Keywords: Sow, group housing, capitalization model