6
Goal
Facilitate the daily calculation of the number of nurse sows that are necessary for the correct functioning of the farrowing quarters in a hyperprolific sows system.
Description
The trick entails adding three columns to the daily handling report of the farrowing quarters in order to collect the following information:
- Piglets that the sow is able to rear.
- Piglets born alive.
- Piglets balance (difference between the piglets that the sow is able to rear and the piglets born alive): it may be positive or negative.
With all the farrowings that we have "closed" on that day we will make the final balance of piglets, and it will tell us how many sows we need to obtain so they act as nurse sows.
Explanation
When we put the sows in the farrowing quarters we will count the number of viable and available teats in each of them, and with this information and the production record of the sows in previous parturitions we will decide how many piglets that sow is able to rear as long as she has a "normal" labour, and we will write down this datum in the corresponding column.
When the sow has ended its labour we will count the piglets born alive and we will write that down on the corresponding column. Next, we will make the balance between the number of piglets that the sow is able to nurse (as we had previously decided) and the piglets born alive, and we will take note of that in the corresponding place bearing in mind that this balance can be positive or negative, this is:
- If the balance is - 2 this means that the sow has 2 more piglets than it can rear.
- If the balance is + 2 this means that we can add 2 more piglets to that sow.
When all the births of that day have been considered closed and ended we will sum the total number of piglets that we have in the balance column and this will give us a total balance of piglets that in the 99% of the cases will be negative: this will mean that there will be piglets in excess and that we will have to find sows for them.
With this balance we will decide how many nurse sows we will need for the number of piglets in excess; this is:
-
If the total balance is -33 and we have sows that are rearing 11 piglets/sow perfectly we will need 3 nurse sows for all those piglets in excess:
- 33 piglets/11 piglets*sow = 3 sows
The following step will be to find which sows will be the chosen ones following the choosing method that we have in each farm.
The last step will be to remove the piglets in excess from the sows with a negative balance, give to the sows with a positive balance the number of piglets that they are missing to reach the goal we had established and give the remaining piglets to the nurse sows.
The decision relative to which piglets are the ones that we have to remove or add will be taken according to the management protocol established in each farm with respect to this affair.
Example of the use of the daily report
| Birth day | Sow | Place | Piglets to be nursed | Born alive | +/- | Final piglets | |
| July 10th | 1 | 12 | 15 | -3 | 12 | ||
| July 10th | 2 | 11 | 10 | +1 | 11 | ||
| July 10th | 3 | 11 | 13 | -2 | 11 | ||
| July 10th | 4 | 11 | 14 | -3 | 11 | ||
| July 10th | 5 | 12 | 11 | +1 | 12 | ||
| July 10th | 6 | 11 | 15 | -4 | 11 | ||
| Total balance | -10 |
Here we have an example of a daily report of the farrowing quarters used to calculate the number of piglets in excess for that day.
According to this report we will have a balance of -10 piglets, and this will mean that after removing and adding the piglets corresponding to the sows according to their individual balance we will have 10 piglets in excess, so we will have to find 1 nurse sow for them.
