Industrialized Pig Farms
1.Pig farm siting: involves acreage, terrain, water source, anti-epidemic, traffic, power supply, pollution discharge and environment protection, etc. And to make the right site, it needs pre-survey and thorough plan.
—Acreage and terrain: work out the pig farm covering area by taking the production area, management area and living quarters into account, as well as the spare area. And the farm should be located in the high-dry terrain with low groundwater level, good air permeability of soil and good ventilation. Do not build the large-scale pig farm in the place enclosed by mountains, or the contaminated air can not be exhausted, causing perennial bad air condition around the farm.
—Anti-epidemic: keep the farm away from the main arterial traffic (highway, railway), more than 2km away from the residential area, considering both the epidemic prevention of the pig farm itself and the effect that the pig farm will make on the residential area. At the same time, the pig farm should be kept at a distance from the other farms.
—Traffic: due to the large traffic volume of feed, pig products and materials, the pig farm should be away from traffic trunk road and also has good conditions for convenient traffic.
—Power supply: the pig farm should be close to the power source with stable power supply to save expenses of power transmission and transformation.
—Water source: it is the prerequisite of pig farm siting, so it needs to be prospected before planing the farm; and the water should be abundant enough for pigs and men use.
—Pollution discharge and environment protection: if there are farmlands and orchards around the pig farm to take advantage of most or all of the pig waste locally, it is the optimal way to handle the pig waste. Or the problem of sewage treatment and environment protection should be programmed as an important problem, and what is important of this problem is the underground water and above-ground water should not be polluted.
2.Water quality: water quality must conform to the drinking water standard and drinking water quality is taking the solid content as the measurement standard: about 150mg. in one litre of water is ideal, less than 5,000mg. is no harm for young pigs, more than 7,000mg. can lead to diarrhea, and more than 10,000mg. is inedible.
3.Pig farm overall layout: the large-scale industrialized pig farm should includes production area, auxiliary production area, management area and living quarters.
—Production area: includes kinds of pig houses, disinfection room (for dressing, bathing and sterilizing), sterilizing pool, drug store, veterinary office, diseased & dead pigs treatment room, pig loading stand, maintenance room & warehouse, duty room, segregation house, feces handling area, etc.
—Auxiliary production area: includes feed plant & warehouse, water tower, wells room, boiler room, power substation, garage, packing house, repair plant, etc. It should be set based on the rules of facilitating epidemic prevention and cooperating with production area.
—Management & living quarters: includes office, eating room, worker’s dormitory, etc. The management & living quarters should be in the high place and in the upwind area. Also the arrangement of recreational facilities has to be taken into consideration to enrich worker’s spare-time life.
4.Pig house overall design: the feature of pig raising factory is all-in-all-out, closely linked running system, so the pig house need to be designed according to the production management process. And the overall steps of pig house design are: first, ensure the pig stall amount according to production management; second, count the number of pig houses; third, complete pig houses overall arrangement.
—Pig stall amount: different production management, different amount of various pig stalls. So here is the example pig farm with 100 sows (designed by Mr. Xinghua Lou from Taiwan in 1989) for reference.
Verify 10 process principles and indicators in the first place:
● sows give 2 births and every birth has 10 piglets stay alive after weaning;
● from weaning to second oestrus of sows is 21 days;
● sows’ gestation period is 114 days, and they are moved into farrowing crates 4 days before giving birth, so only 110 days for sows in the gestation crates;
● sows are in the farrowing crates in the last 4 days of their gestation period;
● new-born piglets are weaned after 28 days, so sows are in the farrowing crates in these 28 days;
● piglets in the nursery period are nursed from 28 days old to 56 days old, it needs another 28 days;
● when the nursery pig is moved out of the nursery house, suppose that its weight is 14kg;
● when the porker is sold, suppose that its weight is 95kg;
● from the current group of pigs are moved out of the pig stall to another group of pigs are moved in, there are 5 days apart for cleaning and sanitation;
● pig stall amount in every stage is 10% more than the calculated number, that is, multiply the calculated number by 1.1.
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—Different pig houses amount: after getting different pig stalls amount, work out different pig houses sizes and amount needed according to the specification of different pig stalls, feces discharge ditch, walkway and duty room.
—Different pig houses arrangement: arrange pig houses in the production area in the light of production technology process. For easy management and shorten transferring distance, taking the farrowing house as the center, the nursery house and the gestation (breeding) house are close to the farrowing house, the piglet house is close to the nursery house, fat pig house is close to piglet house. The distance between the pig houses has no standard, an it is determined by the requirements of fireproofing, carriage and ventilation, combining with actual site situation (10-20m).
—Pig houses internal design: it is influenced by production technology process. Building a large industrialized pig farm is a complicated work, and the internal design and facilities of the pig house involves many details, so it needs to investigate as many pig farms as possible to make comprehensive analysis to draw on each other’s strength to make a detailed design plan.
Specialized Households Pig Farms
1.The farm siting rules are the same with the industrialized pig farm. Larger the pig farm is, stricter the rules are. If the raised pig number is small, the farm siting depends on the particular situation.
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2.Pig house building types: there are 3 types. Open-type pig house, greenhouse-type pig house, closed-type pig house.
—Open-type: simply built, saving construction materials; good ventilation and daylighting, and easily exhausting harmful gases. But it is the open-type, so the temperature in the pig house can not be artificially controlled (in the place where the winter is cold, it will has a strong impact on pigs’ production and growth), and also the open farm has relatively larger covering area.
—Greenhouse-type: it is a shed-like building, set with plastic film and utilizing solar radiation to heighten its inner temperature. And it is a kind of pig house of small investment and good effect which is widely used in the places cold in winter. According to the layers of plastic film, this kind of pig house is divided into single layered type and double layered type; according to piggery array, it is divided into single-row type and double-row type; and there are also the semi-underground type and integrated type (combine vegetable planting and pig raising).
Single layered and double layered types:
The temperature in the single layered type pig house is 13.5 ℃ higher than non-layered pig house, which shows that the layered pig house can increase the temp observably. According to the experiment carried out in cold regions, in the coldest days of winter, pig house temp keeps above 8 ℃ day and night, due to the heightened temp, pigs’ weight-gain is increased (increase by 238kg, and every increased kg can save 0.55kg feed).
Single-row and double-row types:
Single-row type is single-row pig house covered with plastic film, and double-row type is two-row pig house covered with plastic film. Single-row and double-row types are all north-south built to get abundant sunlight to improve the internal temp.
Semi-underground type:
This type should be built at the place with high-dry terrain, low groundwater level, or at the hillside and its temp in winter is higher than other types of pig houses. Usually its underground part is 80-100cm; its inner wall should be solid enough to prevent pigs breaking and landslip; its ground should be smooth, built with concrete.
Integrated type (combine vegetable planting and pig raising):
This type of pig house has the same building way with single-row plastic filmed type. Usually, in one-row pig house, there is a partition wall in the middle and half for pigs, half for vegetables. The partition wall has holes in it for the exchange between vitiated air from pig house and fresh air from vegetable plot, and the hole has to be sealed when spraying pesticide on vegetables to avoid pigs poisoned. It had better build a methane tank below the pig bed to use pig waste to produce methane for lighting, cooking, heating, etc.
Plastic filmed pig house:
It has high humidity in winter, if there are too many pigs in one pig house, there will be high-concentration ammonia in the air which will affect pig production, so the vent-hole for ventilation is necessary to lower humidity and discharge vitiated air. In winter, to keep proper temp and reduce temp loss in pig house, cover a layer of cold-proof straw mat whose inner surface is made of brown paper and outer surface is made of rice straw, on the plastic film. In summer, to keep cool in pig house, the cold-proof straw mat can be removed to cover the shelter instead. The plastic filmed pig house needs to be reasonably designed with large daylight area, so that sunlight can reach the north wall bottom directly; it should be faced with the south, tending to the west with 5°-10° angle, then during the months of 11-12, the pig house absorbs the sunlight for the longest time and gets the most solar energy, having good warming effect.
—Closed-type: it includes single-row type, double-row type and multi-row type.
Single-row closed pig house: pig stalls in it are lined up into one row, and this closed piggery can be set with or without walkway near to the north wall. Simple structure, good performance of lighting, ventilation, damp-proofing, suitable for the districts without that cold winter.
Double-row closed pig house: pig stalls are lined up into two rows, and the walkway is set in the middle. Easy management, high availability, good heat prevention, but the lighting and damp-proofing is not as good as the single-row, suitable for districts cold in winter for raising fat pigs.
Multi-row closed pig house: pig stalls are lined up into three or four rows, and there are 2 or 3 walkways in the middle. Good heat prevention, high availability, but its structure is complex, building cost is high, ventilation and cooling is not so good.
Other Essential Points of Large-scale Pig Farm Construction
Pig farm built of rationality and scientificity can save the investor a lot in labor resources, material resources and financial resources.
1.About the pig farm overall layout:
According to summer prevailing wind direction, pig production area is sited in the downwind or sidewind area of management & living quarters, and pig waste handling facilities and diseased & dead pigs incinerator are in the downwind or sidewind area of production area; there are green belts or bounding walls between different functional areas. Set walls around the production area; set duty rooms, dressing&sterilizing rooms, vehicle disinfection channels and feed loading stands at the entrance and exist. The pig house orientation generally is north-south and the angle tending to west or east is no more than 30°, and the orientation should be kept as longitudinal axis, forming an angle of 30°-60° with the perennial dominant wind direction. The distance between pig houses is 7-9m and the pig houses ranks are mating house, gestation house, farrowing house, breeding house, finishing house and fattening house. Separate the cleaning path and pollution path by green belt with no cross.
2.About pig house overall design:
Farm greening points—complete the farm greening combining with the requirements of separation between pig houses, sun shading, wind proofing; plant trees, flowers and grasses that can beautify the environment and purify the air according to the local actual environment condition, choosing deciduous arbors; the green area should not be less than 30%.