How PEDv Made Us Rethink Our Feeder Design For Increased Biosecurity

PEDv’s first appearance in North America—in May of 2013 in the U.S. and January 2014 in Canada—created many new biosecurity challenges for pork producers across the continent. Not only did they have to deal with keeping their herds healthy, but they also needed to prevent future herds from being infected by thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting the barn after it was emptied.

When one of our long-term Canadian customers became infected by the virus, they found that they could completely disinfect their barn except in one location on our feeder—the shelf. As they swab-tested for the virus, they struggled to get the underside of the shelf disinfected. They came to us for a solution... which made us rethink our shelf design.

To be clear, Crystal Spring’s feed shelf at this time was not the original design that we came up with 40+ years ago in our original wet/dry shelf feeder, but it was still pretty close. In fact, most CS feeders that are still in use after 25+ years still have that design. A feed shelf is the one thing we never imagined we would have to go back and innovate, but as the old saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.”

In response to our customer’s experience, our engineering team came up with the concept of a ‘flat’ shelf that enables customers who struggle with PEDv to easily clean and disinfect the feeder.

Additionally, this new flat shelf enabled us rethink our wean-to-finish feeder solutions, particularly our WF9-Series two-stage shelf feeders. The new shelf design allowed us to lower the shelf height so that even the smallest, newly-weaned piglets can reach the feed on the shelf, while also giving the heaviest market-weight pigs easy access to the feeder nipple.

This solution simplifies feeder management because producers no longer have to deal with the complexities of adjusting the two-stage shelf like they have to do with WF9-Series.

We introduced this new flat shelf wean-to-finish feeder last year as the WF2-Series.

You may be left wondering if the feeders that you purchased from us over the last 25+ years are obsolete… we would tell you “absolutely not!!” We have producers all over the world using Crystal Spring feeders and many are in areas where PEDv is found, but they are still able to manage the cleaning and disinfection process just fine. And if you are currently using the WF9-Series feeders, please call your authorized Crystal Spring dealer before your next feeder purchase, or reach out to your CS Expert to find out if the WF2-Series is the correct solution for your wean-to-finish production.

o get more information about our new WF2-Series feeder, find your local authorized dealer, or contact your CS Expert please visit our NEW website at www.crystalspring.com and use our new Dealer Locator tool. You may also contact us directly at  info@cshe.com or by WhatsApp/Phone: +1 (402) 227-8228.