Keep sow body condition stable

It is important to assess sow body condition accurately to ensure that appropriate nutrition is provided to each sow for maintenance, growth, reproduction and lactation.

There should be minimal variation in condition throughout a sow’s productive life and producers should aim for an optimal average condition score of 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5) throughout the breeding herd.

Score sows at key times in the reproductive cycle and always score the sows by touch, using the palm of the hand as it is more accurate than just scoring ‘by eye’. Consider the shoulders, ribs, backbone and hips, not just one location.

For more information on the Breed+3 initiative and to download the factsheet,

Action for Productivity 20: Condition scoring of sows, go to: www.bpex.org.uk/2TS/breeding/. 

Stockman North group tackles ventilation

The latest stockman session began with basic finisher pig care, with the group discussing daily checks, feed management and stockmanship.

The second half of the session was about ventilation – a hugely important topic as poor ventilation on pig farms can be a key barrier to improving pig health and productivity.

The group talked about all types of ventilation and the building types each of them has on farm with ventilation consultant John Chambers. It was a lively discussion!

The next session of Stockman North will be the Abattoir visit on Wednesday 12th June.

To find out more from John Chambers, check out this video. 

Understanding your farm data

Our new 2TS Recording Project is well underway. It’s to help pig producers understand recorded data to improve their herd performance and profits.

We are working with pig recording analyst Sanne Baden and six different pig producers on the project, as part of the Breed +3 initiative.  Sanne is making four visits to each farm over the course of this year.

Plans producers made after their initial discussions included: 1) measuring the impact of different genetics through the system 2) reducing the number of non-productive days by scanning twice and using boars to check for heat and 3) recording causes of death in the farrowing house to help pinpoint associations with higher than normal pre-weaning mortality rates.

Herd performance recording and spending time understanding trends and patterns in the data helps pinpoint which changes could make the biggest difference to pig performance and cutting costs.

Please contact me or any member of the KT team if you’d like any guidance on recording and understanding your data.

Have a look back at my previous post on 18 February too

Get gilts used to routine before serving

Before their first service, it is important that gilts are familiar with the routine of moving to the heat detection area and service pens where they should also be able to explore the area and meet the boars.

This will reduce stress, keep gilts calmer and help ensure strong standing reflexes during insemination. BPEX Work Instructions 13 and 14 on humanising and handling gilts have more information.

Be aware that gilts are notorious for taking a long time to inseminate, which can be due to stress. A good gilt familiarisation routine will help to reduce this along with calm, patient staff in the service area. Serving gilts in a small AI pen (typically 2m x 2m) with good boar contact will also increase the chances of a successful insemination. See Action for Productivity factsheets 29, 30 and 31 for more information on AI.

Good gilt management is the starting point of a productive breeding herd and will help improve the number of pigs weaned per sow per year, the aim of BPEX’s Breed+3 initiative.

Stockmen get together in person and online

Both the Stockman East and Stockman North development groups have been on visits to local feed mills as part of their course. In the East, the venue was Crown Milling in Norfolk and included a background to the business, tour of the mill and details of how it is managed.

The Stockman North group visited the ABN feed mill in Northallerton for a similar tour, including an insight into how feed rations are created.  The trainees said how much they enjoyed “the chance to see pig feed produced

from start to finish”.

And more than 40 people have now joined the BPEX Stockman Development Facebook group.  It is for all pig stockmen to help keep in touch, improve knowledge and share ideas with others around the country. 

It’s also linked directly to the BPEX Stockman Development and Stockman Plus courses. The group page highlights details of workshops, relevant videos and photos and gives the chance to ask questions, comment and discuss with others in the group.

Log in to your account at: www.facebook.com and search for ‘BPEX Stockman Development’ to join the group.

For information about Stockman Development, Stockman Plus and all the other the practical training activities in the pig industry, click here http://www.bpex.org.uk/2TS/Training/ or contact Samantha Bowsher: 07976 980753 or samantha.bowsher@bpex.ahdb.org.uk

Record turnout for online tour of Danish farms

More than 70 people attended our BPEX Live online workshop this week – the most since the series began – to see photos of new technologies and buildings on Danish pig farms.

These included loose farrowing pens, new weaned pig accommodation and a slurry cooling system to reduce ammonia emissions and extract heat.

Despite a technical hitch at the start of the workshop, viewers stayed online to ask the presenters more about the technologies and pig performance.

The presenters, Lis Ravn and Nigel Penlington from BPEX and Jonathan French from BOCM Pauls, travelled with a group of English pig producers, buildings manufacturers and feed consultants on the BPEX study tour to Denmark in March.

Running the online workshop, or ‘webinar’, was a way for them to share what they had learned with many more people across the industry.

It is an increasingly popular way for producers to gain new knowledge; everyone can join in online from their own home or office and they have the chance to join in and ask questions or just listen in and pick up some ideas.

The presentation on the Danish tour is now available to download from: www.bpex.org.uk/news/events/webinars/default.aspx 

New project to help manage seasonality

Pig producers met in Norfolk this week to discuss seasonality. My colleagues and I in the BPEX knowledge transfer team will now identify suitable interventions to trial to try and combat it. Points discussed included:

• Plan ahead and have extra at least 10% extra gilts available for the seasonality period
• Provide wallows, sprinklers, showers and shades for all stock, at all stages of production
• Adjust the service routine so animals are served earlier in the day when cooler
• Do not be tempted to reserve return sows and keep to the policy of: two returns as a gilt and one return for the rest of her life
• If you are home breeding, do not select gilts from a dam that has returned during the summer period in case there is a genetic predisposition for seasonal infertility.

Look out for more on this soon. In the meantime, please get in touch if you have comments or questions and want to find out more. Please comment below or contact me directly.