image: IHT Cooling Mats, invented at Purdue University and manufactured and sold by IHT Group, were voted as National Hog Farmer's 2024 New Product Tour winner during the 2024 World Pork Expo.
Credit: IHT Group photo
IHT Cooling Mats were voted the winner of National Hog Farmer’s 2024 New Product Tour during the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa.
The patented mats have aluminum tread plates on top of aluminum pipes that circulate water. Sensors in the mats determine if the hog is too hot and circulate new water to keep the mat cool. There are different designs for boars and sows so the mats fit into their crates.
The technology was designed by Allan Schinckel, a professor in Purdue University’s College of Agriculture, and Robert M. Stwalley III, associate clinical professor in Purdue’s Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
Tests were conducted under commercial farm conditions in the southeast United States (for boars) and Mexico (for sows). Schinckel and Stwalley have used the mats to conduct multiple research projects on heat stress and physiological response to heat stress, heat production, feed intake patterns, reproduction and more. Research results were published in previous issues of Livestock Science, Applied Animal Science, Applied Engineering in Agriculture, and Journal of Animal Science.
IHT Group, a division of Decisive Dividend Corp. (TSXV: DE) based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, began to manufacture and sell the mats to the North American market this spring. The company signed a license for the patented technology with the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization.