A long-term swine study finds a missing link between feed outages and feed conversion ratios.

Len Kahn, Chief Marketing Officer, BinSentry

There’s no fudging the figures. At 60 to 70 percent of the total cost of raising an animal, feed is every producer’s biggest expense.

To reach peak performance productivity, animals need a constant supply of feed. But when that flow of feed is interrupted, it can lead to growth delays, increased mortality, and other health issues - all of which impact feed conversion ratios (FCR).

Or, that’s the thinking, anyway. To date, however, there hasn’t been a clear, definitive correlation between feed outages and higher FCR scores.

But now, a new, long-term swine study spearheaded by the agricultural tech firm BinSentry claims to have found the missing link.

Fighting for Every Point of FCR

So, why all the fuss over FCR in the first place? Why is it such an important benchmark, and how does it impact profitability?

According to Jim Moody, the Chief Operating Officer at Hanor, FCR is a critical metric that directly impacts profitability, so much so that people will often fight for fraction-of-a-point improvements. Hanor, headquartered in Enid, Oklahoma, is a premier, world-class leader in pork production with operations in six states and nearly 650 employees.

“The way we see it, there are two key components to feed conversion. One is the performance of the pig, and the second is how that feed is actually distributed and managed onsite,” explained Moody.

For Hanor specifically, one point of feed conversion per head is worth about $0.30. While it may seem like a small number, consider that Hanor produces around two million pigs annually.

“That means just a single point of FCR across our entire system becomes the difference of US$600,000,” pointed out Moody.

How Out-of-Feed Events Impact FCR

BinSentry’s technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced sensors to create a detailed 3D image of the feed surface inside a bin and capture accurate, real-time inventory data.

The company currently monitors tens of thousands of feed bins on swine and poultry operations across North America, a number that’s growing by over 3,000 bins per month.

“When we talk about feed outages on a swine or poultry operation, we typically mean ‘We ran out of feed at the barn.’ And that, obviously, is a no-no,” said Ben Allen, the Chief Executive Officer at BinSentry. “People work hard to have feed on-site, and that takes proper ordering, inventory tracking, and logistics. There’s a lot of work in the supply chain to ensure feed is where it needs to be.”

He noted that he and the BinSentry team suspected they weren’t getting the complete picture of what was causing feed outages, aside from actually running out of feed on the farm.

That’s what led to Hanor and BinSentry collaborating on a study to understand the impact of feed outages on FCR.

Over 15 months between 2022 and 2023, BinSentry installed some 200 sensors on feed bins across 28 Hanor sites and 195 barns containing some 234,000 finishing pigs.

What the Study Found

After sifting through 15 months of data, both BinSentry and Hanor made several startling discoveries. The first, is just how significant a dent in FCR scores a feed outage can cause.

“One of the things we did was identify groups of pigs that had out-of-feed events for 24 hours or more and groups that did not,” Moody explained. “So, we were able to split them up and look at the performance of those two groups of pigs separately.”

What they found was that groups that experienced 24-hour or longer feed outages lost about seven points of FCR.

Another key finding: About 70 to 80 percent of the out-of-feed events they tracked were not due to running out of feed on-site but were caused by mistakes in managing the manual slides on tandem feed bins.

“The workers or farmers at the barn can’t see through that metal bin any more than you or I can,” stated Allen. “So, if a bin runs out, there’s no flashing red light that says, ‘Hey, open the other bin slide,’ and it goes completely unreported because we don’t have a way to track it.”

He added that the simple reason there never was a correlation between feed outages and FCR is that the biggest source of outages - poor slide management - was being missed as a consideration.

“Through this work, we recognized that the vast majority of outage hours is due to not knowing to run over and open a slide; and that’s brand new, frankly,” said Allen.

“Going into the study, I don’t think we would’ve guessed that was a major issue. But it is, and that finding is consistent across our entire database.”

Room for Improvement

BinSentry was able to detect the source of feed outages using its proprietary AI algorithm, which flags unexplained or unusual feed consumption flatlines.

“Our sensors provide a continuous data stream by monitoring feed at the point of consumption. But data by itself isn’t super useful,” noted Allen. “People have to be able to act on it too, and that’s the hard part. If we know that slide management is a big issue, then we’ve got to help operators fix it in real time. That’s where you’re going to see the true value of any new technology.”

Coming out of their 15-month Hanor study, Allen said that the BinSentry platform can now send timely, targeted alerts to operators that identify the bins and barns that need attention first.

“The caretakers at our facilities all have access to BinSentry. So, they can get on their phones, check feed bin levels, and identify which bins need their slides moved over and how much feed they need to order,” revealed Moody. “Whereas before, it was all a very manual process.”

For Hanor, being able to see and address feed outages has meant improving their FCR score by up to seven basis points, $2.10 a head, or $2 million a year.

“That’s a huge financial imperfection we were able to get corrected,” Moody said. “Importantly, we can now measure the problem. And, if we can measure it, we can improve it.”

A Step-Function Change in FCR

Allen said regarding FCR improvement, the industry invests considerable time and effort into a range of areas, including animal genetics, best practices, veterinary medicine, and nutrition. Slide management, however, could have the greatest impact.

“Most of the industry is blind to this, and it’s the single biggest improvement to FCR that we can make for operators today,” Allen stated.

Allen continued his point, "I'm not aware of another category where you could have a conversation about seeing an improvement of seven points. It’s a step-function change.”

Aside from boosting an operation’s profitability, FCR improvements can also help operations hit their sustainability targets.

“If we can get seven points of FCR out of the global industry, we’re all more sustainable, we’re all more profitable, and we’re all raising healthier animals,” said Allen.

“Now, that’s something worth talking about.”

Conclusions of the Study

There are three key takeaways from the BinSentry-Hanor study that farm businesses should pay attention to.

1. Feed outage hours, or the time in which animals are without feed, are massively under-reported;
2. Most of the time when animals don’t have access to feed, there is feed on site, but the manual slide simply wasn’t opened to allow the feed in the bin to reach the animals in the barn;
3. If farm businesses aren’t tracking all categories of out-of-feed events - the aforementioned slide management and empty bins - they are missing up to 80 percent of outages.

---

---