Category: Product Information

Part Two – Drip Cooling Cooling grower and finisher sheds is fairly easy to get your head around. You install some sprayers, hook them up to a control system (such as our COOLGRO), and move on with your life. This works great with larger pigs in naturally ventilated sheds. The same easy system can be used for dry sows in pen situations. The harder part of the equation is wherever young pigs are involved, especially in the farrowing house. Lactating sows like low temperatures (ideally between 12 and 22 degrees Celsius), but piglets like temperatures of 26 – 32 degrees Celsius. Managing these two requirements in a shared environment isn’t hard, but just requires a little forward planning.

Part One – Spray Cooling Australian summers aren’t what you would call ideal for pigs. Even with the massive variation across the 7.692 million square kilometres of our country, most places are too hot for comfort in the height of summer. Worse than that, the temperature severely inhibits pigs’ performance. The optimal temperature for Grower pigs (and larger classes such as Finishers, Sows and Boars) is between 16 and 26 degrees Celsius. Every degree above this upper number several impacts their appetite, FCR, growth rate and fertility. When was the last time you had a summer day below 26 degrees on your farm? This is nothing new to talk about. Farmers use all kinds of methods to cool their pigs throughout the hotter months, hoping to avoid the dreaded effects of the Aussie summer. I’m just writing about the one that Think Livestock can help you with.