Benchmark Magazine Article Archive

We are going to take a walk through the barn with a new, fresh set of eyes. Our eyes and habits are focused, blinded to what has become a daily routine of accepting we are in ‘survival mode’ which translates into – “no money to fix that”. Today is different. I am accompanied by a new employee, she is a rare find. No pig experience, but has significant animal background; she has tried a few careers and, as a mature individual, has developed an interest in reconnecting with livestock.

As the Spring weather tries to break through on a winter that doesn’t seem to stop, many producers are still apprehensive about Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv). About a year ago, PEDv became active in the United States.

In the year since the first confirmed cases of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) virus occurred in North America, the U.S. swine industry has learned an unprecedented amount of information about the disease in a relatively short amount of time. However, we are far from being able to fully predict the economic ramifications of the disease. Harrisvaccines, is one company that knows that there always will be newly emerging and ever-changing or mutating viruses that affect pork production profitability.

Numbers are everywhere in pork production. From the simplest sow cards to custom, user-defined reports generated in PigCHAMP, collecting, managing and scrutinizing data related to your operation can provide a great deal of insight. Whether you have underperforming sows or high cull rates, information is vital to maximizing efficiency and ensuring a correction can be made in problem areas.

Sow removal and replacement is a necessary part of optimizing herd performance. It is a balance between keeping the herd young enough, while maintaining a significant number of sows between parities three and five in the system. Sow longevity is a complex phenomenon, influenced by many factors, including genetics, gilt and sow price, nutritional programs, gilt development, reproductive performance and health status. Recent analysis of herd records from more than 700,000 sows across 355 U.S. swine farms revealed an average replacement rate of 53.55 percent, calculated as number of animals culled plus number of sows that died (PigCHAMP, 2013).

It is difficult to define a “typical” sow herd. Size differs. Ownership differs. Herd objectives differ. Some are contracted to sell weaned piglets while others produce piglets to be finished within their own facilities or flow in a multi-sourced system. Many are commercial herds, others are in the business of genetic multiplication. Some purchase their replacements; others produce their own. Some herds experience significant disease challenges; others are relatively healthy.

Making decisions based solely on short-term results can have a negative long-term impact on employee retention and organizational outlook. Developing stronger benefit and incentive packages now can go a long way toward recruiting and retaining employees and ensuring future success of the organization. Human capital is the backbone of the pork industry, which requires thousands of employees to complete the pork production process.

BENCHMARK editors wanted to get the perspective of someone who has applied long-term visionary thinking to opportunities in swine production and experienced the impact of that thinking over a long period of time. We could not think of a better source than veterinarian Martha Acosta, who has helped hundreds of producers from Mexico to Brazil improve their productivity and insight into effective and profitable pork production.

When using single fixed-time AI, all sows within a single weaning group are treated the same. All subsequent matings are synchronized from the weaning date and time. In order to obtain optimum results after treatment, daily boar exposure and proper feed intake must not be restricted. The treatment is administered intravaginally to healthy sows 96 hours after weaning. Twenty-four hours later, all sows are inseminated with a single dose of semen without regard to estrus. Thus, there is no need for heat detection, which effectively decreases labor costs and increases throughput and utilization of inventory.

The record feed prices of the last couple years generated huge financial losses for hog producers. Does anyone remember the 2012 drought that caused feed prices to soar by as much as $65/head unless you grew your own corn to feed your hogs? Poor feed booking decisions in late 2011 and early 2012 could have cost a hog producer a bundle of money.

Growing and finishing pigs carries with it a unique position; one in which factors occurring both upstream (those at the reproductive level) and downstream (those closer to market/packing) can have a significant impact on an operation. The relationship is, however, multi-layered, as the decisions made at the grow-finish level can also influence the choices on either side of the production chain.

One of the many challenges facing pork producers is the ever-increasing amount of information that is being generated and made available for decision-making inside and outside of the operation. BENCHMARK editors sat down with Curtiss Littlejohn, long-time pork producer, industry advocate and now Swine Product Manager at Canarm Ag Systems to get his insight into how the industry can turn disparate data sources into information used to make better decisions.