Energy, Production and Environmental Characteristics of a Conventional Weaned Piglet Farm in North West Spain
Maria D. Fernandez,
Eugenio Losada,
Juan A. Ortega,
Tamara Arango,
María José Ginzo-Villamayor,
Roberto Besteiro,
Santiago Lamosa,
Martín Barrasa,
Manuel R. Rodriguez
Affiliations
Maria D. Fernandez
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Escola Politécnica Superior de Enxeñaría, Campus Terra, s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain
Eugenio Losada
Xunta de Galicia, Consellería de Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, 27370 Rábade, Spain
Juan A. Ortega
Xunta de Galicia, Oficina Agraria Comarcal Lalín, Rúa Areal, 27, 1º - 36500 Lalín, Pontevedra, Spain
Tamara Arango
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Escola Politécnica Superior de Enxeñaría, Campus Terra, s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain
María José Ginzo-Villamayor
Department of Statistics, Mathematical Analysis and Optimization, University of Santiago de Compostela, Faculty of Mathematics, Campus Vida, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Roberto Besteiro
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Escola Politécnica Superior de Enxeñaría, Campus Terra, s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain
Santiago Lamosa
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Escola Politécnica Superior de Enxeñaría, Campus Terra, s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain
Martín Barrasa
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Escola Politécnica Superior de Enxeñaría, Campus Terra, s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain
Manuel R. Rodriguez
Department of Agroforestry Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Escola Politécnica Superior de Enxeñaría, Campus Terra, s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain
Postweaning is one of the most sensitive and energy-demanding phases of swine production. The objective of this research was to assess the energy, production and environmental characteristics of a conventional farm with temperature-based environmental control. The selected energy, environmental and production variables were measured on farm, in a high livestock density area of NW Spain, for seven production cycles. The quantification of variables was aimed at obtaining the maximum performance with the lowest possible use of resources, focusing on animal welfare and production efficiency. The Brown–Forsythe, Welch and Games-Howell tests revealed significant differences in terms of temperature, relative humidity and CO2 concentrations among production cycles, and among the critical, postcritical and final periods. Improved humidity management resulted in a 17% reduction of climate control energy, which involved energy savings in the range of 33% to 47% per kg produced at the end of the postweaning cycle. Accordingly, adding humidity as a control variable could result in higher ventilation rates, thereby improving animal welfare, reducing heating energy use and increasing weight gain per unit climate control energy. In addition, the strong correlations found between heating energy and relative humidity (R2 = 0.73) and ventilation energy and CO2 (R2 = 0.99) suggest that these variables could be readily estimated without additional sensor costs.
