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Sow Far Sow Good
In true Aussie laid-back fashion, Emma and Marianne take a Rivalea tea-break. (opens in new window)
SAC expertise is helping Australia’s largest pork producer enhance the welfare of its 26,000 sows and their piglets.
Rivalea, based in Corowa, New South Wales, produces 40% of Australia’s pork. With its policy to “care for every pig, every day” the company stresses its commitment to delivering high standards of animal welfare.
Rivalea staff recently made a fact-finding visit to the UK to investigate PigSAFE, an innovative free-farrowing system developed by SAC’s animal welfare researcher Dr Emma Baxter with research colleagues at Newcastle University.
The company then invited Emma and SAC Research Technician Marianne Farish to New South Wales to assist it with trialling PigSAFE with its own sows. Emma has just returned from a three-month secondment while Marianne will stay on with Rivalea for a further three months.
Testing the PigSAFE system in the challenging Australian climate brought new demands. Emma considered system adaptations needed to take account of the risk of heat stress. Marianne’s technical skills, particularly her recent thermography qualifications, were also put to good use.
During her time with Rivalea, Emma’s advised on many additional welfare and housing issues. She spent time teaching farm staff about data collection and discussed experimental design with Rivalea scientists. An Australasian Pig Science Association conference and Pork Cooperative Research Centre meetings were also on her agenda.
Speaking of her experience, Emma said: “The Australian livestock industry is developing rapidly backed with financial support for research, so there are exciting opportunities to collaborate with Australian scientists in all sectors. We enjoy an excellent working relationship with Rivalea, which sees that the science published by SAC is objective and robust, that we have a good work ethic and that we can communicate with farmers and producers as well as academics”.
“The secondment taught me a lot about working on a highly intensive commercial farm, the challenges of managing robust data collection on-farm, teaching animal behaviour to stock-people as well as system adaptations needed to tackle severe heat stress in animals”.
SAC and Rivalea are looking forward to continued collaboration on PigSAFE and other projects.