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Home-Made Alarm Warns When Farrowing Begins
"Initially, during farrowing time, I was setting my alarm clock and getting up every two hours throughout the night. That gets to be quite a drag after a few nights of it. So I started work on an alarm system that would alert me when a sow was actually farrowing."
That's how Ed Egli explains his reasoning for bui
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Home-Made Alarm Warns When Farrowing Begins HOG EQUIPMENT & IDEAS Hog Equipment & Ideas (351) 4-6-7 "Initially, during farrowing time, I was setting my alarm clock and getting up every two hours throughout the night. That gets to be quite a drag after a few nights of it. So I started work on an alarm system that would alert me when a sow was actually farrowing."
That's how Ed Egli explains his reasoning for building a device which alerts lim when a sow is beginning to farrow so he can assist, if necessary, without having to make unnecessary trips.
Egli's invention is a clamp-on device that signals him in the house when a sow has her first pig. The device consists of a 36-in. length of 2-in. square tubing with a piece of flat iron bent into a V-shape welded to the bottom. A small toggle switch is wired into the open area of the V-shaped guard plate. More tubing and strap iron are used to make the clamps and holder arm for clamping the alarm to the end of the farrowing crate.
To use it, Egli decides which sows are near farrowing and puts them in a pen with an alarm. The alarm is set up so that it crowds the sow forward. When she lays down to deliver, her rump is positioned to one side or the other of the tubing. The V-shaped guard plate protects the switch from being disturbed by the sow, thus preventing false alarms.
When a pig is delivered, it tends to squirm around in search of the sow's teats. In so doing, it eventually squirms into or nuzzles up against the toggle switch. This sets off an alarm or buzzer in Egli's house.
He says he first used his alarm four years ago. "Since I installed the units, I've yet to have a sow have more than two pigs by the time I got there," he notes.
Egli built three units forhis 50 sows at a cost of approximately $20 each, not including labor. He figures it took him about half a day to build each unit after he designed the first one. All of the parts are readily available.
The critical thing is to get the switch so pigs can trip it easily, yet making it stable enough to prevent false alarms," Egli says. He adds that he experimented with a home-made switch for awhile until he decided to go with a commercial toggle switch.
Egli's alarm was originally hooked up to a doorbell-type buzzer. Now he has wired it into a commercial monitoring system. The monitor checks his hog house environment for temperature changes that may harm the hogs. The farrowing alarm is wired into it and into a tape recorder system that alerts his neighbors in case something goes wrong in either monitor when he's not around.
If you'd like more details on how to build one, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Edwin Egli, Route 2, New Salem, N.D. 58563 (ph 701 843-7380). He doesn't have any prepared literature to send but will answer specific questions.
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