Use of different rooting materials to improve hygiene and to lower ammonia emission within the outdoor concrete area in organic growing finishing pig production

No significant differences in performance were seen between treatments. The pigs found the rooting yards with rooting material outdoors attractive and pigs with rooting material outdoors tended to be outdoors more often than pigs in the reference pen. However, these differences were generally not significant, due to large variations. Hygiene outdoors was significantly better in the pens with rooting yards and rooting material than in the reference pen, but there were no significant differences depending on whether the rooting yards were filled with wood shavings, peat or peat with feed pellets. However, while the visual hygiene evaluations showed positive results for all rooting materials tested, the ammonia measurements did not show matching results. Instead, the ammonia emission from the outdoor area was higher in pens with wood shavings in the rooting yards than in the reference pen. Thus introduction of a rooting yard with rooting material in the outdoor area in organic pig production can have positive results in terms of improved hygiene and reduced ammonia emission if the rooting material consists of peat. Addition of small amounts of feed pellets in the peat, to make the rooting material more attractive to the pigs, did not give any great positive effect.