TDK conference 2018

Environmental hygiene is becoming more significant in intensive pig production, since the development of several clinical and subclinical diseases are influenced by the housing conditions, These diseases can cause the deterioration of production indicators, resulting in reduced profitability of the farms. Therefore, the goal of my research was to survey the current environmental conditions on the Hungarian farrow-to finish swine farms.

In our study we surveyed 14 large-scale pig farms between October 2016 and August 2018. 3 farms were rechecked, thus, altogether 18 farrowing and nursery units, 15 fattening units and 8 breeding sow units were involved. We measured the environmental conditions by using equipment to evaluate the environmental hygiene and the ventilation in the operating farm units. During the farm visits we used digital devices to measure the following environmental parameters: temperature, humidity, carbon-dioxide concentration, lighting, airflow and airspeed. The data were processed by using Microsoft Excel™ software.

The results show that on the majority of the surveyed farms the environmental conditions were not ideal. The carbon-dioxide concentration was the least ideal for the fatteners, just in 6% of the surveyed fattening units was within the optimal range. Temperature was the least favourable in the breeding sow units, was being optimal on 12% of the farms. The humidity level was sufficient in 22% of the surveyed nurseries only. The lighting was mostly optimal, however, just on half of the surveyed breeding sow areas was within the optimal range.

Based on the results it can be stated that in many cases the settings and maintenance of the ventilation systems on the Hungarian farrow-to-finish pig farms cannot fulfil the environmental requirements. The continuous monitoring of the environmental conditions and the regular checks of the ventilation would be essential for the farm managers to receive proper and actual information on the environmental hygiene of their facilities which would largely contribute to making well-established decisions regarding the future technology changes and investments.