What is the National Pig Centre?
The National Pig Centre is unique in the UK, housing both indoor and outdoor research pig herds on a commercial scale. This allows for comparisons across both production systems to support all UK pig production.
The Centre has been designed to perform:
- Nutrition trials from farrow to finish, with capabilities to provide specific diets both for replicate pens of pigs and for individual pigs within a group
- Evaluation of different housing and management systems, including indoor vs outdoor production systems and comparison of farrowing systems: Conventional crates vs loose farrowing systems
- Water preference or water-based treatment trials.
Additional features include:
- CCTV throughout the whole facility for 24/7 monitoring of pig behaviour, welfare and farrowing assessments
- Flexi-penning for flexibility with trial design
- Dissection facilities for tissue collection and a laboratory for sample processing
- Ultrasound scanner for collection of in utero measurements
- Conference facilities
Impact
Studies carried out by researchers are maximising animal welfare, productivity and profitability and informing the precision management of pigs, delivering greater efficiency through improved sow reproduction, higher piglet survival, better feed efficiency, improved health and enhanced social behaviour.
In collaboration with:
This Capability is based at a facility owned by the University of Leeds.
It facilitates collaboration across disciplines, including the environment, food science and security, biological science and physical sciences.
