Do you have the choice to build or renovate a new pig stable? But you're still having second thoughts about the pig feeders or the feeding system? Then read our purchase tips on pig feeding troughs and drinking troughs. Of course you can also our online referral fill in and we will be happy to share with you the best pig feeding system in your situation. The best choice is often not the most expensive. Take advantage of our 50-year experience in the field of piglets' hoods, piglets' cabins, piglets' nests, floor heating, drinking troughs, feeding troughs for newborns, piglets, meat pigs and sows. We can answer almost all your questions.
Feedbox of pigs: pork trench, dry-feed troughs or grubbers?
Which one do you choose and why?
The feeding troughs for pigs that we produce and deliver ourselves have all been created and further developed on subsequent food. Whether it's about dryers for pigs, dryers for piglets, feeding troughs with integrated drinking troughs, grubbers, plateau trays, variomix frying bins (automatic feeder), forage storage tanks or sow feed troughs for group accommodation as a replacement for sows feeding stations, they are all intended to perform ad libitum. So the pigs can eat their food 24 hours a day in peace and drink. This ensures rest in the lofts and does not stress the pigs that significantly improves the growth of the pigs. Rest, cleanliness and regularity are important for pigs, this fully fits PT1 feed bins.
Type of pig feed
Which type of bowl or bowl we recommend depends on the type of feed the pig farmer wants to use. We divide the feed species into five categories. Grain, crumb, flour, flour mixed with max 35% CCM and/or wheat barley and frying. In addition, it is of course important whether we are talking about baby-pigs, piglets, meat pigs, chickens reared or sows. Not every feeding machine is suitable for flour and not every feeding tray is suitable for grains. There's a big difference. We have a suitable feed tray with matching drinkers for every pig at every stage of life and for every type of feed. Due to these many possible combinations, we can say that we have the largest range of feed machines in the world. We have the right solution for every situation.
Number of pigs
In addition, the group size of the pigs plays a role. The ideal number of pigs per bowl is stated on our website. This number of pigs per feeding place may vary from country to country, legislation or pig farmer, but we know after 50 years that these numbers of pigs per feeding tank give the best results.
Provide concurrent feed
If you provide food at the same time, e.g. for pork frying, we can also make a stainless steel pork trench for you. We also make in our own factory forged high quality with an indestructible stainless steel bead edge at the front that is extremely stable and perfectly closed so that no frying can crawl in. In short, there is almost no stable situation where we cannot provide you with a feeding system.
Automatic feeding machine: Don't waste pig food
Our pigs and piglets feeding troughs are basically all automatic feeding systems. With a feeding machine, all feeding troughs are easy to fill and the pigs themselves dose their food easily through the day out. PT1 has always paid a great deal of attention to animal friendliness and animal welfare of pigs. The feeding troughs have been finished with extra care so that the animals are absolutely unable to harm themselves to sharp parts and cannot get wounds or that ear tags linger. This is a very important basis to prevent infections and to reduce any drug use or any antibiotics.
Extinguish
In addition, we pay a lot of attention to combating feed spills. Almost every bin has an ingenious anti-morsal edge on the front or anti-morsal arrows on the side to go feed spill. This way no food falls into the dung well and you get the best feed conversion. This saves feed costs but also contributes to a lower CO2 tax.
All our feeding troughs are simple and very accurate. The animals cannot possibly adjust the feeding troughs themselves, so if the feeding troughs set, then the pig does the work itself and you rarely have to reset a feed bowl. The settings are very simple and quick to operate that works cost-effectively on work. Our advice is not to over-difficulty the feeders. The pigs can eat all day and can do so in peace. It's a good thing they have to work a little bit unnoticed for dinner. Because the pig pushes the forehead to a valve unnoticed in this way or because there is a portion of food in front of the nose we boot with our feeding troughs chasing the pig in nature. This greatly improves feed intake and feed conversion. In the bowl itself or in the vicinity of the bowl we always recommend to have a drinking nipple with bowl for fresh water. If a pig can also drink fresh water during eating, the feed intake is better because they also eat more tasty. In addition, the pig feed is better absorbed while the pig can stay at the food place instead of the pig having to walk away to drink during the meal.
Colour and light: benefits
Finally, the colour of the bowl is important. Our feeding troughs are all white or stainless steel inside. As a result, there is a lot of light that has many advantages over dark or black food trays. First, animals see the food better. In addition, a pig does not like to go with its head in a dark part, after all a pig is a flight animal. A light bowl invites much faster to eat. In addition, our feeding troughs open as much as possible, because seeing food does eat.
The same applies to drinking troughs, seeing drinking makes you drink. Therefore, the duo drinkers that can be built into the wall are next dryers for piglets and pork so popular. The pigs see each other drinking. For these reasons, pigs prefer to eat from a light as from a dark bowl.
Last but not least, a light food bowl greatly improves hygiene in the pigsty. If a feed bowl, trough or valve is black or dark, a pig farmer or his employee sees less well when it's dirty in the stable and if there's food pecking. This also offers many advantages when spraying the stable because you see better what is clean or dirty. This saves a lot of time in work and consequently saves costs.
Used feeding pigs? Why we do not recommend this
For 50 years we have been creating, developing and supplying professionally feeding troughs for piglets, pigs and sows with high ease of use. The development of feeding troughs never stands still. Situations are always changing, as are the demands and farmers often have very good ideas from practice.
If a question or comment is asked more often or a well-founded complaint occurs more frequently, we immediately adapt our product to that and change our product range. The feeding troughs as they are now, are different from the feeding troughs a few years old. This is not always visible but is usually in details such as morsal edges, settings or thickness of the material used.
When purchasing used food trays, keep in mind that they already comply with future legislation and regulations, so that it can last for a number of years. Ask people who have worked with it how they liked it when they reuse their equipment. The choice of cheap materials should not be at the expense of work efficiency and job fun.
Please also note that when purchasing used materials, these materials have also been properly cleaned so that there can be no unnoticed introduction of viruses or diseases, such as NVWA also advises in this article.
Cheap can be expensive, try to avoid that.
Daily investments in pig feed
There is an annual supply of pig feed. Feed is by far the largest cost of a pig farmer. By controlling these costs daily with the best pig feed bowl and by choosing a bowl that lasts for a very long time, the bowl is earned back in a very short time. No feed spills, proper feed conversion and no feed in the dung pit provide the lowest fixed costs that return daily to the pig shed and contribute to a lower CO2 footprint. We dare to say that the right food bowl in the stable is the best and most important investment in your pig lofts. You should not want to cut back on this. See used grubbers for sale or used drying troughs for sale, then think carefully what you choose. For example, buy a new test tray from PT1 and compare it to a used feed tray or a feed tray of another brand. You'll soon be convinced.
Porcine stables
Besides pigs feeding troughs we also supply professional piglets' hoods, piglets' nests and floor heating for piglets' nests. Again, we only choose the best European materials. For piglets, for example, we use impact resistant UV resistant plexiglass plate, which is not yellow and thus less easy to tear. This combined with a stainless steel frame ensures the strongest construction available. Piglets in HDPE 10mm plate we also make. For floor heating for piglets we use indestructible plastic plates with excellent grip that are very wear-resistant. Often these heating plates are used in the renovation of crimps because the existing heating plates leak or because the top layer is worn out. The hot water hose that is in our heating plates is 75% tightly processed in the top layer and does not make contact with the base plate. Due to this still air insulation this plate isolates itself and insulation at the bottom of the plate is completely unnecessary. The underfloor heaters and the couplings we use are completely oxygen-tight/diffusion-proof so that there is no incoming air in the beds that prevents heating. We have the floor heating, piglets' hoods and piglets' nests in fixed sizes, but we can also make different sizes or shapes in our own factory in the Netherlands.
A-quality, made in Western Europe
For our feeding troughs, floor heating and piglets nests we use high-quality pig shed parts made especially with our own molds in Western Europe and of the best quality. PT1 has an online shop where many of these articles, such as drinking nipples and star buds, are sold for pig stables as a spare part or replacement of an existing part. We will be happy to let you take advantage of the favourable prices we have because we use these A-quality pork barn accessories with large numbers per year in our pig barn products. You can easily order these parts and they will be delivered as soon as possible.
