Using Floor Cooling as an Approach to improve the Thermal Environment in the Sleeping Area in an Open Pig House

Abstract

In order to provide pigs a comfortable sleeping area in hot weather, a floor cooling system was designed and applied to production buildings. Experiments were conducted to compare the floor temperatures and to observe the lying behaviour of pigs in the sleeping area of the buildings with and without floor cooling system. The results showed that, without the floor cooling system, the floor temperature was nearly the same as the air temperature in the open pig house. With the floor cooling system, the floor temperature of the sleeping area was controlled at 22–26 °C, even though the air temperature was as high as 34 °C, which improved the comfort of the pigs in the sleeping area. The pig lying behaviour was greatly affected by the floor temperature. More than 85% of the pigs were lying in the sleeping area when the floor temperature was below 26 °C, while only 10–20% of the pigs were lying in the sleeping area when the floor temperature was about 30 °C, and hardly any when the floor temperature was above 33 °C.