Swine Early Wean Building

3223 College Avenue
Manhattan, KS 66506
532-9013
785-532-7059 fax

Description

The Kansas State University Segregated Early Weaning Research Facility was built in 1993 through the generous donations of Kansas pork producers, the Kansas Pork Producers Council, allied industry and research grants obtained by K-State faculty in swine nutrition. The facility is made up of two identical buildings located approximately ¼ mile northwest of the KSU Swine Teaching and Research Center. The facility is run as a separate site and there are no personnel or pig flow between the two sites and there is a shower inside the entryway of each barn. Every nine weeks, approximately 400 weanling pigs are delivered to the site from a commercial swine facility. After eight weeks and when the pigs typically average 60 lb, they are then moved to a different commercial facility where the pigs are finished. The SEW site is managed by a swine graduate student.

Each barn has 40 pens (5 ×4’) that have an ad libitum feeder and nipple waterer. Pens also have wire flooring and typically hold five pigs. Recently the watering system in the barns has been modified to provide separate water lines to groups of different pens. This modification allows us to evaluate various compounds delivered via drinking water compared to more traditional feed additives.

The Kansas State University Segregated Early Weaning Research Facility is an important component of our swine program’s research efforts. It was instrumental in the development of the Segregated Early Wean and transition diets that are used by producers across the country, and continues to be influential with additional research on evaluating feed ingredients for weanling pigs, feed additives and feeding management.

Contact Information

Jason Woodworth
Research Professor
224 Weber Hall
785-532-1157
jwoodworth@ksu.edu