Articles - Management

Achieving a high prolificacy and knowing how to take advantage of it (transform it into weaned piglets) is vital for the productivity of a sow farm.

This system does not provide an improvement in the production data, but a saving in energy costs and a better use of the resources in general.

The use of these nests help create two well-differentiated areas: a warmer one for the piglets and a cooler one for the sows.

The aim is to avoid dehydration during the first days after weaning to improve feed intake.

Many of these tools are difficult to clean and, in many cases, they may be damaged by water, soap, and disinfectants.

Quick and simple system for identifying if we have an excessive yeast proliferation.

The results reveal that the stress that the sows due to excessive interventions around the moment of the farrowing causes a clear increase in the pre-weaning mortality.

It is very important that all the staff on the farm can know quickly what is going on in the farrowing quarters, because in this way everybody will be able to carry out the daily duties in this area.

Frequent deaths and cases of disease with typical “diamond-skin” lesions appeared in fattening pigs although they were vaccinated against Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae.

We saw aggressiveness in the sows, and we suspected that it could have been caused by the handling around the moment of the farrowing. We decided to register and analyze the data relative to the handling in order to confirm our suspicions.

In many cases, the use of materials that lessen the piglets' boredom helps to control the problem.

It is common to see that there are many farms on which the gestation of the sows entered in the farrowing quarters is not correctly managed. How much space / batch would be losing a farm that enters systematically a 10% of sows / batch one week before than the appropriate date?

In order to avoid that the pigs urinate and defecate in the trough we can place approximately a metre of pipe on the floor parallel to the trough and tightened with two clamps.

It consists in lengthening the towropes of the windows that we want to keep more open.

Keeping the doors always closed with the help of a counterweight

There is an unusual increase of the returns-to-oestrus at 31-39 days. The majority are due to sows previously negative to the pregnancy ultrasound testing, and the returns-to-oestrus happened before 42 days.

Each batch of sows is identified with a different colour, so we will only have to look at the colour of the pegs

With a water tank above the pregnant sows cages we ensure their water supply.

By ear tagging a gilt in the group with its birth date we will always know the age of the replacement gilts.

There are many home-made options that allow us to carry out this so important technique on our farms.

Having a piglet feeder and a lamp in each farrowing pen avoids the annoying moving of these items between rooms and sometimes between buildings.

In a system with 2.35 farrowings/sow/year, more than 14 piglets born per farrowing, more than 11 weaned piglets/farrowing and around 1% of losses at weaning; what can we do to improve this?

The farrowing interval is one of the production parameters more commonly used as an indicator of the production efficiency of a farm.

Knowing how to make the most of space in our farrowing rooms is a key point, not only when using foster sows, but also for increasing the age at weaning. The farrowing pen is the most expensive pen at the farm, and we must obtain the maximum possible efficiency out of it.