Dick Fitzsimmons has been closely monitoring pigs in his FAST™ (Farmweld Automatic Sorting Technology) facility for performance and behavior.

Before Mapleton, MN, producer Dick Fitzsimmons retrofitted a finishing facility into a FAST™ (Farmweld Automatic Sorting Technology) barn, he wondered how the pigs would react. He’s now on his second turn in the facility and has devised a few unscientific tests to study his pigs’ behavior.

No Camping in the Food Courts

Some people question whether pigs linger in the food courts because they contain both feeders and waterers. Fitzsimmons says that’s not the case and found a way to prove it. He simply closes off the entrance gate to the scale for about an hour and a half, along with all the gates between the loafing area and the food courts. Then he watches what happens.

“All the pigs will be gone out of the food courts,” says Fitzsimmons. That tells him pigs are circulating between the loafing area and the food courts. “You are always getting turnover,” he says.

Favorite Sleeping Spots

While it is obvious to Fitzsimmons that his pigs move about throughout the pens, he questioned whether they develop their favorite resting places. To check this out, he used a can of Sprayola and marked five or six pigs sleeping in one general spot. He sprayed a mark on their heads. Then he moved to another area and sprayed pigs on the back and went to a third area and sprayed pigs on the rump. When Fitzsimmons returned several times over the next few days, the pigs were sleeping in basically the same locations.

In addition to behavior, Fitzsimmons is also very interested in monitoring the growth of the FAST pigs and issued electronic identification ear tags to all 600 pigs. At this point he is just collecting data. So far he says he’s surprised at how much variation in weight he’s seen.

“As an industry, we assume we are closer to producing uniform pigs than we are,” he says. “I think that’s part of the reason a scale will help us. In the past 20 years, we’ve started using things like artificial insemination to try to fix it and we still aren’t there. If we can’t do it genetically, maybe we’ll have to do it mechanically,” says Fitzsimmons.