The Barns Experiment

Welfare, Meat Quality, and Performance of Pigs Housed in Large-group, Deep-litter Systems

Producers and consumers perceive that group rearing of slaughter pigs in deep bedded hoop barns is more welfare-friendly for pigs and produces pork with more desirable eating quality compared to conventional systems. However, little research supports this perception. Our objectives in two separate experiments were to evaluate the effects of housing system on pig welfare, meat quality, growth of...

Hoop Barns for Grow-Finish Swine

Swine producers in the United States who are looking for lower cost structures in which to raise pigs have increasingly turned to so-called hoop barns or hooped shelters as facilities in which to house grow-finish swine. Hoop barns have been rapidly adopted. For example, by 2001, Iowa farmers had erected more than 2,100 hoop barns for finishing pigs. Hoop barns can be used successfully to finis...

Longitudinal study of the contamination of air and of soil surfaces in the vicinity of pig barns by livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

During 1 year, samples were taken on 4 days, one sample in each season, from pigs, the floor, and the air inside pig barns and from the ambient air and soil at different distances outside six commercial livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA)-positive pig barns in the north and east of Germany. LA-MRSA was isolated from animals, floor, and air samples in the b...

A Survey Comparison of Pest Control and Nuisance Wildlife Control Operators in Kentucky

Occurrence of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Turkey and broiler barns and contamination of air and soil surfaces in their vicinity.

The emission of microorganisms, especially resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), from poultry farms is of public interest, and its occurrence and relevance are controversially discussed. So far, there are limited data on this issue. In this study, we investigated the occurrence of livestock-associated (LA)-MRSA inside and outside previously tested MRSA-p...

Implementing Water-Based Foam Depopulation of Floor Reared Poultry

There are six major steps involved in responding to rapidly spreading poultry disease outbreaks including biosecurity, surveillance, quarantine, mass emergency depopulation, mass carcass disposal, and decontamination. Water-based foam is one of the methods used for mass emergency depopulation during severe disease outbreaks. This project evaluated the logistics of foam depopulation in two exper...