More moving for sows in Scan-farrowing pens

Farrowing crates restrict the movements and the behaviour of the sows. The only Scan-farrowing pens (Jyden-Dantec) with slatted floor in Germany are introduced. They enable to restrict the use of farrowing crates to a limited period around the time of farrowing and to reduce the period of restriction of sow movements to 25 % of the time from birth to weaning. With these this pens we investigated the influence of a limit peripartal fixation on the success of rearing. From 4.075 liveborn piglets only 4.5% were crushed. The farrowing performance was good (11,29 liveborn and 9,53 weaned piglets per sow, 16,98% piglet mortality). The practical use of 30 scan-farrowing pens for loose lactating sows did not increase piglet mortality in comparison with standard systems.