Articles - Management

From their respective academic and on-farm perspectives, Josep Gasa and Josep Casanovas comment on a recent study about the effect of postweaning feed intake.

It is a matter of considering animal welfare, workplace ergonomics, respect for the environment, and societal expectations.

Professor Pejsak’s view on tail docking: Is it ethically justified and practically possible to phase out this practice in piglets?

In this logbook, each page corresponds to a week of the year in which all the matings during the week are recorded.

We focus on moving surplus piglets, which forces us to use nurse sows. We explain two ways to do this in a very visual video.

In the previous article, we learned about the concept of feed safety, its impact on swine production, and the responsibility of the compound feed industry in the food chain. Now we will focus on how to practically apply this concept in the compound feed production process.

We propose a more direct indicator to look at and analyze reproductive problems on the farm.

Drying and warming the piglets favors their survival only in farrowing units with moderate or suboptimal temperatures (<25ºC).

Here are three basic rules for deciding if and when to do cross fostering and use nurse sows.

The evolution of multi-site pig production over the last 25 years has not held true to its original intent.

We talked to Jonatan Sánchez-Osorio, Technical Director of Topigs Norsvin Spain, about the essential points in managing sows from this genetic line.

In France, the ban on castration of pigs without pain relief, i.e. without anesthesia, has been in force since January 1, 2022, and this has led to the production of entire male pigs. The main difficulty with this type of production lies in the risk of unpleasant odors being present in the meat from these animals.

Spain is the first EU country to legislate the installation of video surveillance systems in slaughterhouses, following the example of England, Scotland, and Israel.

A plastic safety fence, like those used in construction, is used to create a barrier between the doors, allowing one person to control sow movement.

In the search for solutions, it is possible to identify and implement effective management strategies to improve the engagement and performance of the younger generation of farm employees.

The farmer decided to use a facility that was previously used for finishing pigs for the final growth phase of gilts. He adapted the liquid feeders to be able to feed dry feed semi-ad libitum.

Enric Marco examines the reasons why the average age at weaning has not yet reached 28 days in Spain.

Does more available space for finishing pigs improve production? Should we aim to have homogenous weight groups? This study assesses the effect of different elements on finishing performance.

Use a waist bag to always have the supplies you need for farrowing assistance at hand.

To ensure that each piglet intakes enough colostrum and to help the smallest piglets get it, split suckling should be used.

In this article, we focus on the key aspects of management to optimize performance from this genetic line of sows. We talked with Carlos Martins.

Javier Lorente tells us how to make newly weaned piglets comfortable and, above all, how to get them to start drinking and eating as soon as possible.

A very simple and functional panel for moving pigs in finishing barns.

What causes can lead to increased feed conversion ratio and mortality with worsened average daily gain?