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The Finnish sow farm Vehmaan Haikara OY has 1,500 productive sows and has been working with the BeFree movement farrowing pens since 2020. The genetics are TN70 sows from Topigs, until recently inseminated with boar ‘Duroc’, since recently with ‘Tempo’ from Topics, no current data is yet available.
Haikara has reduced the sow herd from the original 1,600 sows by just under 10%, allowing the piglets to lactate longer on the sow. The lactation period was 25-26 days, and now it is 31-32 days. This, therefore, reduces the average number of piglets weaned per year slightly from 37 to 35.5 in favour of higher weaning weights and more vital piglets. The weaning weight, therefore, increased from 7 kg at 25-26 lactation days to 8.5 kg at 31-32 lactation days without additional supplementary feeding of the weaned piglets.
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