PigCHAMP sow herds in the United States and Canada show continued performance improvements.
By John Deen and Anil Sukumaran Nair, MVSc., PhD.

Benchmarking provides an opportunity for the retrospective review of industry performance. The present year-end summaries reveal interesting numbers in comparison to what we saw five years ago. 2010 was another year of improved overall performance for U.S. herds, despite wide variations among individual farms. The U.S. herds showed significant improvements in performance in terms of key variables of average pigs born alive per litter (11.47 versus 10.64 perviously), farrowing rate (81.46 compared to 78.54 previously) and pigs weaned per mated female per year (23.09 versus 21.78 previously).

Sow culling rates and death rates continued to decline in U.S. herds during this time. Preweaning piglet deaths did increase somewhat (from 12.18 to 12.62).

Canadian herds sustained their level of performance during this time and showed a reduction in culling rates (from 44.45 percent down to 40.39 percent) and death rate (from 8.10 percent to 7.68 percent)

However, it was interesting to note the continued existence of the wide range in performance of individual farms in terms of these key production indicators in both countries. This variation is clearly an indication of the potential for improvement on many farms.

USA 2010 - Annual summary

Total farms used for summary = 329

Canada 2010 - Annual summary

Total farms used for summary = 49

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