Emission of CO2 in a livestock barn based on diurnal activities and various growing stages of pigs

Abstract

The carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from pig barns are increasing persistently as a result of increasing pig farming due to the growing demand of pork, which is a great concern for rising greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. Therefore, the objective of this study was to measure the CO2 emissions with respect to the diurnal activities among different growing stages of pigs. Two experiments were conducted in an experimental pig barn in 2020 and 2021 to estimate the CO2 emissions in response to their activities and growing stages. A livestock environment management system (LEMS) was used to measure the concentration of CO2 inside the barn. A camera with a network video recorder was used to record the activities of pigs on a diurnal basis. Our results showed that the lowest CO2 emissions were found in the fattening stage 1 (age 61–81 days) while the highest CO2 emissions were resulted from the fattening stage 4 (age 124–144 days). Moreover, among the four fattening stages, CO2 emissions levels were significantly different from each other (p < 0.05). The CO2 emissions were maximum during sleeping at midday (1–2 PM) and minimum during feeding at the evening (5–6 PM). In conclusion, this study recommends the need of additional research to be conducted to estimate the CO2 emissions concerning diurnal activities and different growing stages of pigs by providing different ingredients of diets. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.