Benchmark Magazine Article Archive

While producers rely on reports for sow records, task management, and performance summaries, many overlook a critical opportunity: harnessing advanced analytics to maximize reproductive efficiency, profitability, and sow longevity.

Natural choline sources occur at meaningful levels in most feed ingredients; which is the main reason why choline is not considered to be a vitamin in the classic sense.

Total number of farms = 174

Today’s modern hyper-prolific sow will often give birth to more piglets than the number of functional teats she possesses. For the farm business, it means that the producers are faced with the decision of having to either allow the sow to try and nurse the additional piglets above functional teat count or create more nurse sows.

Over the past decade, the modern sow has changed significantly. Increased productivity necessitates advancements in management strategies to support performance and longevity. Management improvements can also have a quicker impact than relying on genetics alone.

As an industry, we have realized the steady increase in sow mortality throughout the past decade and employed various efforts to respond to this critical production issue.

We’ve been using data to analyze past, current, and future hog producer productivity and profitability for some time.

Total number of farms = 167

Total number of farms = 18

After more than a year of financial losses, the North American swine sector is finally turning a corner.

Throughout the last decade, rising sow mortality has become a major concern within the US swine industry, with a substantial proportion of it due to pelvic organ prolapse (POP) incidence.

Sow retention is a complex trait that influences sow lifetime productivity -the quality pigs weaned per sow per year - and the efficiency and profitability of a swine operation.