This thesis is conducted together with the environmental- and health department in Halmstad
community. The thesis is about allowance of bedding and water supply for pig farms in
Halmstad community. These farms are chosen randomly from all of the pig farms in
Halmstad community. It includes inspection of 27 pig farms and writing of a report. During
the inspections I study the amount of bedding, what kind of bedding, water supply and
injuries like lameness, shoulder-bone sore, ear-, flank- and pig tail biting. Also the amounts of
dirty boxes were documented. The reason for this thesis depends on the new regulation about
bedding that came out the first of October 2007. The regulation about free access of water is
not new but the community wanted a mapping of these are followed. These inspections show
that some of the farmers do not follow the regulation about free access of water to the pigs.
According to the amount of observed shoulder-bone sore and pigtail biting the regulation is
not followed. According to my investigation there are tendencies of growing amounts of
shoulder-bone sore when there is too little straw. Sows that get 0-300 grams of straw per box
per day have a share of 5 % shoulder-bone sore, if the amount of straw increases to 300-600
grams straw per day the amount of shoulder-bone sore halves. If the amount of straw
increases to more than 600 grams per day the amount of shoulder-bone sore halves according
to the sows that get 300-600 grams straw per day. My studies in this subject have shown that
pig tail biting only existed when the water flow were 3,3 litres per minute or lower. The low
water flow together with little straw increases the pig tail biting. In the boxes with only 0-300
gram straw per day the amount of pigtail biting was 4,5 %. If the amount of straw increased to
more than 300 gram per box a day the amount of pigtail biting was decreased by 50 %.
Lameness mostly exists on those pigs that get 0-300 grams of straw.
Högskolan i Halmstad/Sektionen för Ekonomi och Teknik (SET) , 2008.