A BETTER home for new-born piglets has been constructed at Sparsholt Agricultural College near Winchester.

The pig-breeding unit has been designed to make life safer for the piglets and to make weaning more comfortable for their 100 or so breeding mums.

It will also ensure that students from the college receive the best possible grounding in animal births, in terms of both handling and caring for them.

The new unit will see the animals housed in an open-style barn with straw-covered floors and rails inside the pens designed to prevent the sows from accidentally crushing their tiny offspring.

The piglets also have access to an area kept warm with heat-lamps so that they don't get cold and sick when they are not feeding.