Climatic conditions / Animal conditions
Climatic conditions / Animal conditions
In temperate climates pigs have diurnal habits but in hot climates they are more nocturnal. If they have been hunted they will confine their activities to darkness. The key to ensuring optimum pig performance and maximum unit output is to provide the correct housing and environmental conditions for the particular stage of pig. Pigs are very sensitive to extremes of climate. Pigs have no sweat glands, no thick hair cover and they rely on fat cover for insulation. Pigs are sensitive to temperature and have sweat glands in their skin. They huddle together to keep warm and wallow to keep cool.
Pigs like to nest, so a nice straw bed is the order of the day. Pigs don’t dung or urinate in their sleeping area, so cleaning out the ark is never unpleasant. In fact, it was quite fun because the pigs liked to help! The whole bed was removed and replaced about every four weeks, when the straw had broken down. It was simply swept out of the ark, which conveniently has a door at each end, on to the ground in front of the ark. This helped to keep the next bed clean by giving the pigs somewhere to wipe their trotters before going to bed. The straw was trampled into the soil pretty quickly, perhaps even improving the structure.
The pigs sleep in the ark all night, and sometimes during the day. although if it’s sunny outside the Tamworths will happily sunbathe all day. In bad weather they will also use the ark for shelter. It is noticed that boars seem to spend more time sleeping than gilts.
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