Dr. Dirk Hesse, independent pork industry consultant, director of AGRIKontakt consulting company

It’s not a secret that either a human being or an animal (we mean a pig here) dies within 10 minutes without air. That’s why high-quality air on a pig farm is very important, but also a difficult-to-achieve thing. Taking into account the peculiarities of the business, pig farms will hardly smell of flowers! On the other hand, there are ways to make pig farm air less “aggressive” (it becomes so due to harmful gases, particularly ammonia).

Advice 1. Cooling of manure. There are various systems, that’s why we won’t rest on technological peculiarities. The important thing is that if the temperature of the slurry reduces by 4–6 ºC, emission of ammonia reduces by 30%. Besides there are systems that allow using the heat of the manure for needs of the farm.

Advice 2. Fresh air intake. Diffusive ceilings have become very popular with Danish and German producers lately. They are relatively cheap and reliable. Although it’s an ideal variant for winter, such ventilation is not enough in spring and summer — the valves should be opened plus a cooling system should be used (for example, water spraying).

Combination of diffusive ceilings with valves and cooling system is a decision for owners, who want to optimize, not minimize, the costs. As with the help of these investments they can achieve 550–560 g of ADG at growers.

Advice 3. Hygiene, hygiene and one more time hygiene! Thanks to its chemical properties, ammonia appears in warm slurry during two weeks from the moment the slurry falls into the collection channel. So it’s logical that if you clean the channel regularly within this time interval, the air on the farm will be much better.

1) How to organize fresh air intake with no harm?

2) Why it is necessary to open windows in a right way?

3) What should floor be like to help keep farm air fresh and clean?

You can find answers for these and other questions in the full version of the article in the Profitable Pig Production magazine, №4 (16) 2013.