TIMELY AND ACCURATE RECORD KEEPING CAN HELP YOU FIND THE BROADER IMPLICATIONS.

By Schae Greenzweig

We know that you take any and all investments made on your farm very seriously – and we think you should! Making decisions for your operation means taking factors like time, finances, staff and more into consideration.

We connected with some of our producers who made the choice to start using PigCHAMP Mobile devices on their farms and asked them for permission to compare their data from the year to year. We wanted to see if there were any production improvements that occurred after a year of mobile usage. The graphs that you see below compare data on individual farms for the final year before, and the first year after, mobile use.

All our participants stressed the importance of being able to make the best decisions in the barn with the most current and accurate data. Those day-to-day decisions have a significant impact on overall production.

Here, we outline a number of case studies from producers across North America, highlighting the positive and tangible results they’re achieving with the use of PigCHAMP Mobile. These case studies demonstrate that the right information at the right time can move and guide production in a positive and efficient manner.

Valley Pork Boys Supply in Minnesota

The unit at Valley Pork Boys Supply saw many of the most dramatic, positive data changes when comparing the two years (2010-2011 versus 2011- 2012). The repeat rate (the percentage of sows that needed to be rebred after the initial mating) dropped by 4 per cent in 2011-2012, giving the farm a 36.57 per cent improvement over the previous year.

Keith Sensenig’s farm in Missouri

“I have a 10-year-old sow unit and have been using mobiles for data recording for the last six years,” Keith Sensenig said. This unit, in particular, was able to gradually increase its conception rate by 22.51 per cent from November 2015 through October 2016.

“When running mobiles, we enter most all of the data directly in the mobile PigCHAMP software. This (approach) keeps our production records 100 percent up to date so that at any time we can run a performance report and know exactly what is happening.

“Also, with having to enter an event only once and not having to transfer (it) to PigCHAMP, our mobiles pay for themselves in time savings alone,” Sensenig said. Saved time has clearly paid off, as seen in the chart above, allowing Sensenig to hit peak breeding windows.

Newton Pork in Iowa

This unit with Newton Pork is a great example of how mobiles can help ensure consistency in the barn. In the year following the introduction of mobile use, Newton Pork had a much more consistent trend line (equating to less fluctuation over the course of the year in average piglets born per sow) than the previous year. The operation saw improvements in liveborn numbers throughout two-thirds of 2011. By using PigCHAMP mobiles, this farm was able to not only increase the number of liveborn per sow each year, but also to maintain a fairly stable piglet average across that timeframe.

Milbrand Farms in Minnesota

“They (PigCHAMP Mobiles) are efficient for the people who work for me – especially when we AI or farrow and they can pop right in there (to view/enter data). Saves them and me time,” Brian Milbrand with Milbrand Farms said. He’s continued to see even more changes that aren’t represented in this chart. “It’s interesting because back then (prior to the introduction of PigCHAMP Mobile), I was weaning 10 pigs per sow and now were averaging more like 13.”

New Fashion Pork in Minnesota

Decreasing your number of nonproductive days is always the goal. As Travis, the sow farm manager at New Fashion Pork, explained, however, sometimes the negative numbers have a positive effect on the overall data keeping for an operation.

“It (PigCHAMP Mobile) allowed corrections to be found faster, making some of the information more accurate. Piglet

“It is easier to keep track of sows and replace lost information which affects the non-production days. I think they (PigCHAMP Mobiles) are wonderful tools that allow us to see information a lot sooner. Any report you run will be as current as the last time you uploaded data into PigCHAMP – which is daily,” he said.

Summary

While the data is definitely compelling, we heard from many producers that the main reason they’ve continued to use mobile software is due to the efficiency.

Producers save themselves time by only entering data once. They say having this data at their fingertips at any time while in the barns is of huge value.

The staff at Valley Pork Boys Supply summed this efficiency up by saying, “We started using mobiles to help save time in the office doing paperwork.

“Also, (we use) it to help eliminate mistakes of writing down wrong numbers etc., and (to allow us) to put more man hours in the barn taking care of pigs instead of in the office re-writing information.”

Here at PigCHAMP, we know that the mobiles save time for the barn and office staff by minimizing the effort needed during data collection. Saving time by utilizing this product means our producers are also able to save money.

Over the past 10+ years, since the new Windows platform was released, users have hinted at another impact that we initially hadn’t considered: the overall impact on production.

The value of providing the right information to the proper people in real-time helps producers make the best decisions that move and guide production in a positive direction.

Want more information on utilizing PigCHAMP Mobiles on your operation?

Visit us at www.pigchamp.com, email sales@pigchamp.com or call us toll-free at 866-774-4242.

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Schae Greenzweig, Marketing Communication Specialist at PigCHAMP
Schae Greenzweig is the marketing communication specialist at PigCHAMP, managing areas such as promotional materials, public events coordination, and internal and external communications.
She grew up on a farm in northcentral Iowa and graduated from Iowa State University in May 2016 with a degree in Agriculture Communication and Agronomy.

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