Abstract:
To achieve intelligent feeding, user-friendly human-computer interaction, and easy maintenance for lactating sows, a set of intelligent and precise feeding systems for lactating sows was designed. This system includes an intelligent feeder, a handheld personal digital assistant terminal, a central controller, and a CAN-Bus bus. It enables convenient on-site management of pig entry and exit management, dynamic monitoring of pig status, and real-time alarm functions for abnormal conditions. In a large-scale sow farm in Yunnan Province, 280 intelligent feeders for lactating sows were installed, and a production performance comparison test was carried out with the production line equipped with traditional feeding. The test results showed that intelligent feeding facilitates realized user-friendly human-computer interaction, touch-sensitive feeding, intelligent wet mixing, non-contact operation, and easy maintenance. Compared with traditional feeding, intelligent feeding increased the average daily feed intake of sows by 0.673 kg and reduced the daily feed waste by 0.345 kg, indicating significant differences(P<0.01) in the average daily feed intake and daily feed waste at different ages between intelligent feeding and traditional feeding. The number of healthy piglets per month increased by 10.44%, the number of healthy piglets per litter increased by 0.69, and the average weight of weaned piglets at 21 days increased by 0.370 kg. The backfat loss of lactating sows decreased by 34.43%, and the 7-day weaning estrus rate increased by 4%. The return on investment analysis of the system demonstrated that intelligent feeding effectively reduces feed waste, improves production performance, and has a high return on investment, which can effectively help large-scale pig farms reduce costs. This study provides a reference for the development and application of intelligent feeding systems for sows.