The gestation and breeding stall is a new offering in the US and is described as a “free access stall” and a self-catching farrowing crate. The new stall allows the sow to come and go out of the crate as needed. To create a sense of security for the sow, once she goes in, the back door closes and locks, so sows on the outside cannot activate the door to get in. As soon as the sow is ready to exit the stall, she backs up, which releases the lock and opens the door for the sow to exit.

“Another feature of this is that it lines up with Proposition 12 regulations for breeding sows,” said Royal. “On breeding day, you can come in and lock a row and one of our arms is going to lock about 20 to 25 stalls per section. At that time, producers are going to activate their feed drops, drop the feed, then enhance the sows to come in. The next time that they come in the stall, as they hit the door, the hook automatically catches the door. Once that hook is set, then everybody that's in the row is locked in. There's no getting out until after your work is done.”

Producers can also use this stall as a sick pen when they have a lame or sick sow that they want to separate from the rest of the herd. The stall system has rear locks that can lock the back door, preventing the sow from leaving, and producers can unlock the rest of the row, and the sick sow can remain in the stall until she's recovered.

“A couple of features that we have with this stall is it's got an all-stainless steel hardware package,” said Royal. “We've got stainless steel adjustable legs, bolt-on feed pipe and stainless-steel waters. It has high-density polyurethane bushings to take the shock out of the doors opening and closing. Each one of the pivot points has a stainless-steel bushing that's fixed to the sides of the crate. It's a rigid, fixed-end system.”

The free stall project started with Hog Slat Germany and remains a popular product in Germany. Royal said they did a lot of research and spoke to a lot of producers in Europe when designing this stall and used the best of all systems to create this free-access stall that is easy to use for sows and efficient for producers.

Prop 12 is legislation from California that is set to go in effect in the state of California in January 2022. To learn more details about Prop 12, click here.