24 Field experience and challenges facing sow production today, industry strategies

Abstract

Abstract I started in the swine industry in 1973 and served for the last 16 years as one of the owners of Swine Management Services (SMS), LLC. I have spent time in a lot of swine facilities of all sizes and ages, and I have seen lots of ideas tried and changes made both positive and negative. I feel that good sow data is your road map to monitoring farms and changes as they are made. SMS has created a company that takes sow reports, does the analysis, and sends written reports to the farm and management for review. SMS currently works with over 450,000 sows in the industry. The farm benchmarking program has 1.6+ million sows from 900+ farms in the United States, Canada, and Australia with data goes back 13 years. It compares farms based on pigs weaned / mated female / year with range of <18 to 34+ pigs. Top farms have figured out the need for quality labor, and they know that gilts are the key to the future—and they will make farrowing changes to improve day 1 care procedures to save more of those pigs. We now see farms with total born at 16+ pigs, pigs weaned per litter at 13+ pigs, pigs weighing 13+ pounds at 19 day weaning age, and sows after weaning coming back into heat in less than 5 days with 95+% breed by day 7. What are their bodies going through? I feel that the ability to manage and feed these high-producing females needs researching. Will that include a lot of work on the nutrition side, floors for sows in lose sows housing, and free stalls in lactation? Where is the trained labor needed coming from?