A project to help reduce the number of pigs who die in transit has shown some positive results.
Pigs going to market in hot summer months are more likely to die in-transit than pigs shipped during cooler times of the year.
Ontario Pork's Stan Bradshaw says heat isn't as much of an issue when the truck is moving down the road as it is when waiting to unload pigs at a processing plant.
The project involved putting up a wall of fans at two Ontario processing facilities.
Trucks waiting to unload their animals could pull up to those fans and let the air blow through.
Bradshaw says the tests showed the fans were able to drop the temperature in the trucks by over 2 degrees celsius in about 15 minutes.
He thinks the fan system is something that should be available at all hog processing plants in the province.
According to Bradshaw, some hog transporters are now experimenting with on-board ventilation systems to keep temperatures cooler during the entire transportation process.
