Carles Casanovas

The goal is to increase the agility of the reading process of the body condition of the sows using the Renco device.

Using tie wraps to tie quickly and efficiently navel cords of newborn piglets.

As of the 3rd-4th day of lactation it is not recommendable anymore to replace small piglets and piglets with poor a growth rate for good piglets, because it is probable that the teat that has to be used has already dried off due to the scarce stimulation received for several consecutive days.

How to make that the sows start their lactation with the maximum number of viable piglets.

When there are not enough teats, the strongest piglet always occupies the place of the weak one, that is left without milk to suckle.

In the previous piece of advice we saw that in small farms it could be interesting to maintain a certain order when entering the sows in the farrowing quarters depending on their parturition. Nevertheless, in big farms or in farms that group together many farrowings at the same time we will have to think about the order in another way, because if the farrowing quarters are not very big we will have the same batch of sows housed in several rooms.

Lasso the pig with a metallic cable lasso and hold the end of the cable to a pen door or divider.

If once we have evened out the litters a sow farrows during the late evening, what do we do?

We are going to see a practical example of how to even out litters after the farrowings in a quick way and minimizing the swappings of piglets.

When the farrowings are programmed, their supervision has to be one of the main tasks in the farrowing quarters. The rest of the tasks must be organized in such a way that we can exert the maximum control over the programmed sows.

It would be so nice if the sows could warn us when there are problems when they are giving birth to their piglets during labour! This seems impossible… Or maybe it is not so.

In the previous chapter we discussed the ideal time to level out litters of newborn piglets. Here's how to do it.

With the high prolificacy of sows nowadays, leveling out litters is one of the most hands-on jobs on the farms of today. It is one of the first steps to start lactation successfully.

We have seen the importance of obtaining a sufficient dose of quality colostrum to generate the newborn’s defenses as well as the conflict that this can suppose when we level the litters after birth. Now lets take a look at the importance of rapidly obtaining colostrum and milk to ensure energy supply and minimize temperature loss.

The ingestion of Ig in sufficient quantity is the first priority. So much so that it even comes before the factor that seems most important: the feed supply.

What if we were to wean on Friday and were able to block farrowings for 2 days? The bulk of farrowings would be concentrated on Monday.