Articles - Management

Sometimes, when working on the farm, we have to get up close to the sow to check its card in order to know its productive cycle. Or, whilst carrying piglets to be fostered, we ask ourselves, will that sow be a second parity one?

Lifting partitions in the farrowing unit allows piglets from different litters to mix, sharing teats and socializing.

When productivity decreases, but productive efficiency is maintained...

There are many types of boot racks in the market, but we can build one ourselves with something available on any farm: a pallet.

The disadvantage of some boxes is that some piglets are too big and lively and jump off easily.

Traditional culling policies have a threshold number of farrowings after which sows are culled —after weaning. But, what would happen if this policy were to be modified to actually consider the performance of each sow?

A system to check your all-in-all-out management and the consecuences of violating internal biosecurity practices.

Minimizing sow losses in the initial cycles has three positive effects for the economic efficiency of the farm

Great care is needed particularly when handling young pigs above 6kg/3 weeks of age, to avoid causing lasting damage.

A simple, economical and practical trick is to identify the replacement gilts with tags of different colours according to the batch they belong to.

Captive bolt humane stunners do not kill larger growing pigs or adults, they render the pig unconscious. Further action is needed to ensure the pig is dead.

To achieve a good feed intake it is essential to reach adequate water consumption 

This article discusses 4-week batch farrowing (4WBF), very common in small farms (250 sows) in some other countries, including France. Analysis will be based on a comparison with 3-week batch farrowing (3WBF).

It is easy to see the reaction of the sows (of all of them!) when we supply them with paper. A handful in front of their snout or at the reach of their mouth is enough... oxytocin! It is like giving an injection!

Key points to have and to keep high-performing work teams on our farms.

Mr. Antonio Tavares, president of the COPA-COGECA, tells us about the current challenges for the European pig sector: the European Commission wants to ban tail docking within 3 years, but nevertheless, it does not plan legislative changes regarding castration.

The farm reports a problem of low prolificacy (mean annual live births of 11.91) and low fertility in summer, with a marked increase in acyclic returns.

Choice feeding is the best choice for piglets of different weights and / or ages to choose between two different feeds in order to meet their growth needs. The response is even better in farms with enteric problems.

This second part deals with the problems caused by not  recording properly the cause of abortions, sows and piglets deaths, nurse sows and hormonal treatments.

How do we get good workers? What must we do to keep them? And, mostly, what do I want on my farm and which workers do I need for that?

This first part deals with backward and impossible data, i.e. the sows that are no longer in the farm but still appear both in the management softwatre and the 100% delivery rates in gilts.

The cost of the staff entails between 6% and 7% of the total production costs of our pigs. Nevertheless, the staff influences this cost by 100%, because almost all the tasks on a farm are manual or controlled by the staff.

Exposure during acclimatization can be considered the first dose of a vaccine, and pre-farrowing exposure its booster.

This trick shows how to reduce the cleaning time of the fattening pens with a solid floor.