Teagasc is to appoint a new Specialist Pig Development Officer to be based in Ballyhaise.

The post has been advertised and interviews are to be held shortly, it says.

Preparation is also underway for the Teagasc Pig Farmers’ Conference 2015. The event takes place over two days.

The conference will take place on the October 20 in the Cavan Crystal Hotel and on the October 21 in the Horse and Jockey Hotel.

Teagasc says that there will be several speakers at the conference covering a broad array of topics.

Teagasc Pig Research Unit at Moorepark

In March of this year ground works began on the site of the old Pig Research Unit at Moorepark which will house the brand new state of the art 200 sow fully integrated Pig Research Centre.

The centre will comprise of two new buildings as well as two smaller buildings retained from the old facility which were built in the mid-nineties and were recently refurbished, Teagasc says.

The first of the new buildings is a 2,500 square metre structure which will house the breeding stock as well as weaners and Teagasc says it will have 62 farrowing places.

It will also house 180 dry sows and gilts on three Electronic Sow Feeding stations and three weaner rooms each holding 360 weaners.

Research work such as a metabolism room for digestibility studies, sow care room and group feed intake recording equipment (FIRE stations) will also be catered for in the building, Teagasc says.

A finisher building is also in the works and will be parallel to the building housing the breeding stock, it will hold over 1,300 finishers divided into four rooms of 330 pigs.

Currently the building works are on or ahead of schedule and thus far the finisher building tank is poured, walled, slatted and has the steel superstructure erected, it says.

Internal walls have just started being laid, Teagasc says, with the roof structure following on in a number of weeks.

The breeding building already has the base of the 2,500 square metre tank poured with walls, slats and steel super-structure also to follow in the next number of weeks.

Planned completion date for works is late April 2016.