Articles - Management

Growth curves as a tool to help manage weight variability among pigs.

The goal is to record the sows' feeding level when fed manually.

This watch has three circles: the blue one represents the hours, the green one the liveborn piglets, and the red one the stillborn piglets.

The goal is to lose as little time as possible when looking for someone on the farm.

Improve the piglets' comfort in the fattening rooms without compromising ventilation by placing an insulating material over the pens.

Wrap the sow's card in a transparent plastic bag and write down on it the information with a thick marker.

20 years ago we inseminated gilts when too small, then we inseminated them when too heavy, and now we are returning to an intermediate weight.

The strategy involves synchronizing the gilts so they come into heat at the same time, in order to properly manage the number of inseminations targeted for each lot.

Thanks to the combination of a decrease in the number of stillborn and an almost 30% decrease of preweaning mortality (down to 10.2%), the ultimate goal is finally achieved: to wean an additional piglet per sow.

As you probably know, the name pig333 web comes from the length of the sow's gestation, which is "3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days". This paper proposes the necessity to review the length of gestation on our farm.

A simple system that uses plastic and adhesive tape to prevent the entry of unfiltered air into a barn can also serve as a safe method to prevent inappropriate non-biosecure personnel movement.

Wrap the ultrasound scanner in cling film to improve the biosecurity measures

The installation of physical barriers at strategic personnel entry points help to define distinct biosecurity areas. This method is commonly used in farms that lack a clear separation between areas with different biosecurity levels.

The goal is to know the production stage of gestating sows in a quick and visual way.

The use of plastic and gravel to prevent the growth of vegetation around the perimeter of the barn. This is a simple strategy that will also decrease the chances for rodents to enter the facilities and it will help improve external barn biosecurity.

The most productive farms are not always the best. We must also bear in mind the weaned piglet's weight and the sow's feed intake.

Using the year the sows enter in production for the sow's identification number.

The trick consists in selecting the appropriate foster sows and marking them on the back with the maximum number of pigs that they can take care of.

After checking that our farm loses days in the servicing of the gilts, the detection of empty sows housed in yards and the culling (sending of the sows to the abattoir), we propose a package of measures…

On this farm, the oral drug is introduced in a 1-litre bottle hanged upside-down (like a drip) from the cart used for tending to the piglets.

There are different systems for carrying out this water delivery. Probably, the most common one is with a hose, but sometimes, the sows' troughs are not facing the corridor but the wall.

This trick explains how to obtain foster sows for the adoptions.

Let us see the case of a farm with 5 non-productive days more than the average of the farms with the same profile. Where are these days lost?

We need to know, at all moments, which amount of feed are the sows eating, so we will weigh the feed at least once per week.