One of the best examples is the farm of Iwona and Andrzej Olejniczak who have built a house for 2,000 finishing pigs together with their daughter Dorota in Dabkowice near Kutno in central Poland three years ago. Recently, they have taken into operation another house for 400 sows.

The Olejniczak family owns 85 hectares of land. They mainly grow maize for grain feed (50 hectares) as wall as rape which is sold to a factory for cooking oil. In cooperation with Hodowla Roslin Strzelce Sp z o.o. they cultivate oats and wheat which is used as seeds. Their investments in the houses allowed the Olejniczak family last year to produce 7,200 finishing pigs with an average share of meat of 57.3 per cent.

A great number of guests took part in the inauguration of the sow new house, among them also representatives of the companies participating in the project, as well as members of the local government. The new building can house 400 sows with a weight of 30 to 100 kg as well as six boars. Sows are inseminated only by artificial insemination. The gilts are grown here from their own production. The farm is managed in a three weeks' cycle. Piglets stay with the sows for 28 days and in the rearing area for six weeks. The aim is an annual production of 3,000 pigs.

The Olejniczak family started their planning for the new house in the past year. Big Dutchman and the sales partner of the German equipment supplier for Poland, Jan Doliasz, were given the order to equip the house. The construction works were done very fast so that the house was ready within 4 weeks.

The house with the dimensions of 30 x 70 metres comprises a farrowing and rearing area, a service centre, separate pens for the boars, a break room for the employees, a laboratory as well as heating facilities. All compartments are equipped with flooring systems made of slats. The house is divided into two areas: On the left there is the service centre and the pens for pregnant sows, on the right the farrowing and rearing areas. On the whole, the house has 48 farrowing pens, with one compartment of 8 pens as a reserve. Heating plates integrated into the plastic slats that are heated with hot water ensure a uniform distribution of heat. The Diff-Air ceiling lets fresh air enter the house. The Big Dutchman MC 135 climate computer controls the entire environment. Feeding is done fully automatically by means of volume dispensers fitted to every pen.

In the rearing area there are two compartments with twelve pens for 40 piglets each – this means that the total number of piglets can reach up to 960 animals. The feed is transported from the feed bins to the PigNic automatic feeders by means of the computer-controlled DR 850 feeding system. The farrowing area as well as the sows' compartments area equipped with a cooling system, allowing to reduce the temperature by up to five to six degrees. The Diff-Air ceiling is used for intake air in the farrowing area, for exhausting the air, CL 600 exhaust air chimneys are installed in the entire house.