Nest building prior to farrowing is a hardwired behavorial drive in sows. They get the incessant urge to move the manipulable material around (here a mixture of rice hulls and short cut straw plus a few twigs) and will eventually create a pile that they deem a comfortable place to lie. The sows will continue nest build with in increasing urgency until farrowing. During farrowing they will occasionally stand up and re-arrange the nest flooring they are lying on. You can see just from this short clip just how important this nest building activity is for the sow. We believe that by allowing the sow to carry out this behavior the chances of a troublesome farrowing is greatly reduced.

Posted by NaturalPigFarming on June 17, 2013 at 1:11 AM