This video shows the first pigs going off to the market after being raised in a 26-story pig-farming skyscraper.
Hubei Zhongxin Kaiwai Modern Farming has built the multi-storey pig farm to resemble a double high-rise apartment building and they confirmed that the first 138 live pigs have now started living in the complex.
The main business of Zhongxin Kaiwai, was traditionally in the cement industry.
It gave them the expertise to build the huge complex together with the fact that the company sees enormous growth potential for investing in agriculture.
The twin towers were unveiled in the Chinese city of Ezhou, in the eastern Hubei Province, in November.
The video shows the first pigs that have taken up residence in one of the towers, which is now completed, with the second one close to completion.
The huge production skyscrapers can slaughter over a million pigs a year raised on the 800,000 square metres of available floor space and were built to tackle the rising demand for pork.
China consumes around half of the world’s pork and the high-tech feeding technology means many of the pigs are ready for slaughter within a few months, compared to pigs being kept in traditional farms, which can take up to 2 years to be ready for market.
When full, the multi-storey pig farm skyscrapers can house over 600,000 animals, which are kept alive through 30,000 feeding locations.
One of the big concerns is the risk of disease, which could spread very quickly with so many pigs packed closely together.
But the complex also comes with a disinfection system that ensures all workers that go inside a disinfected in order to make sure disease is not brought inside.
Designers say that the high-rise design means it will be more easily ventilated and offers more space for the animals, although locals are worried about the smell of so many animals.
The company said that the 138 pigs living in the complex had actually been introduced in September to test the facilities and that all of them were now large enough to go to market.
After being weighed to confirm there were large enough, there were disinfected before being moved to an elevator, where they were taken down to the first floor and loaded onto an air-conditioned pig transport truck for a final inspection before going off to the slaughterhouse.
More pigs are now coming to move on to the other levels after a clean bill of health for the technology and production methods.
The company added that the second skyscraper was close to completion now, and will also soon be receiving its first pigs.
General manager Jin Lin said they were delighted with the results that had produced healthy and clean pigs.
He said: “Our company processing point of view of taking measures to scale up and optimise the process of raising pigs including cattle breeding and other efficiencies with the end results exceeding expectations.”
The success of the 138 pigs in the first batch with a much larger batch now being introduced, and by 2024 they hope to be at 1.2 million a year.
The next step for the company is to get involved in the slaughtering and also build a sales network to improve its grip on the market further.
