Abstract

In Sweden there are 34 schools that offers agricultural education at highschool level. Most of these schools have a farm with animal production. The main objective of this Masters Thesis is to penetrate questions associated with the design of animal buildings at farming schools. It is done as a case study. The initiative was taken by teachers at the Uddetorp school. The goal is to propose a layout plan for a piggery at Uddetorp Estate. Other objectives are to: - identify the interested party, persons and groups that have opinions about the piggery, - identify the goals that the piggery will be a mean to achieve, - to point out target groups for the piggery, - to describe the activities for these target groups, - to document experiences from other farming schools, - to specify the functional demands that different activities pose, - to sketch a proposition for a piggery at Uddetorp. The work is mainly based upon interviews and visits since literature on this subject is missing. Altogether I have done 27 interviews with teachers, staff, students, farmers and representatives for different farming organisations and associations. A reference of the interviews are presented in the thesis. The piggery is or could be a mean to reach the following main goals: - Education of students at the school - Recruiting of new students to the school - Public education about modem animal production - Research activities performed by The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), The department of animal health and welfare. - Demonstration for students at SLU The above mentioned goals have been analysed. To be able to reach these goals functional requirements are posed on the building design. They are proposed by the interested party for the piggery at Uddetorp, and staff and building advisors from other farming schools. Further functional demands are given by the slaughterhouse’s quality program and adjustment to existing buildings. Following functional requests are posed on an animal house for educational purposes: - The most important is to make the students interested in pig production. This pose qualitative demands on a good work environment, a modern production system, an aesthetical design and a well kept stable. - Preventive health care is important in modem animal production. Basic requirements are animal welfare, "all in - all out" production, "transfer room”, and a farm quarantine. - The purpose of the education is to deal with the complete life cycle of the sow and pig. This requires an integrated production with own recruitment of gilts. - The production should be high. That enforces the reliability of the education. - The production system should be easy to understand. - The work demand should be evenly divided between and during the weeks. No students should have to work during a week with no special "events”. That would be both boring and less educating. The students are assumed to work for periods of one week each time. - The housing system should be common. Feeding and manure systems should be easy to understand and handle. - Inside the piggery a group of students should be able to simultaneously both hear and see, animals and teachers. - The teachers should easily be able to overlook the entire building. - The farm work should be able to divide for two students with equal responsibility. Public guiding (public education and student recruitment) through the piggery requests: - The piggery should look like a normal production unit - The entire cycle of production should be on display all the time, e. g. always having suckling pigs. - The building should have a representative entrance hall. 15 people should have space enough to put on protecting clothes. To make it possible for scientists from SLU to run experiments, the requirements are: - A research section that does not border to sections with other animals. - The animal records should be in order - The number of sows should not be less than 60 Further education offered for farmers and farm workers, primarily use teachers and classrooms. The stable should be well kept. To achieve this requires: - A rational management, e g automatic feeding procedures - The stable should be easy to keep tidy and on a high sanitary level Finally a design for a piggery at Uddetorp Estate is proposed, see appendix 5, 6 and 7. All parts for pig production away from finishing pigs are housed in a new building attached to the old sowhouse. A smaller classroom, service-, research- and studentareas are localised to half of the existing sowhouse. The other half is not used. The total number of sows is 112. In the planning concept it is stated that an "all in - all out” production should be used at Uddetorp. With each group consisting of 16 sows one of the existing sections for finishing pigs could be filled with growing pigs from one group. Only 2 of 5 groups of finishing pigs are raised at Uddetorp, the rest are sold as growing pigs. A farrowing interval of 22 weeks is recommended, 5 weeks suckling time. (The Animal Welfare Act requires at least 4 weeks suckling time). A group interval of 3 weeks is recommended (one group of sows farrow every third week). In this way; weeks with no special events are avoided, sows that repeat their heat are easily incorporated with the following group and there always will be suckling pigs in the piggery. The housing system is based on special pens and rooms for growing pigs. A new tank for slurry is proposed since most pens have slatted floor. The slurry from the finishing pigs should also be stored in the new tank. The pregnant sows are kept on a deep straw bedding. The manure is stored on the existing storage area. To lower the risk for contagious diseases to spread from other farms a transfer room and a farm quarantine are built. Windows between different rooms and the corridors facilitates supervisions of the work, guiding and communication. A big entrance hall for 30 people, changing-room for students, classroom, office, pause-room for students etc are placed in what is presently used as sowhouse.

Keywords

Agricultural schools; animal buildings; teaching; education; function; planning; students

Published in

Rapport - Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, Institutionen för lantbruksteknik
1998,
Publisher: Institutionen för lantbruksteknik, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/125826