Elena Vizcaíno

Locomotor problems are serious, multi-factorial problems that aren’t well registered on farms, but for the most part are correctable.

Short weaning to service interval isn’t always a synonym for good management, since we have to take into consideration not only average number of days, but also the effect on the percentage of distribution after returns.

We analyze a real case, and we will check out how a partial analysis of the data can give place to erroneous conclusions.

In this second article we are going to analyze the causes of these locomotive system disorders and the treatments to avoid them or to minimize their effects.

The losses due to diarrhoea problems appear concentrated, basically, during the first week in the weaners stage, whilst in the farms that have not suffered diarrhoea problems, the mortality is distibuted more evenly.

It is a widely documented fact that pig production has seasonal variations mainly focused on a descent in the reproductive efficiency in the gestation phase (difficulty in the coming into oestrus, a higher number of reproductive failures) during the summer and autumn months.

It's necessary to promote a standardization of the causes of the losses/cullings of the sows. Some rules on which this standardization can be based on are proposed.

The registration of the sow losses/cullings in the management computer programs is normally something easy, but it is not always given the importance that it really has so, sometimes, the registration is incomplete, with wrong dates and without writing down the cause of the loss/culling. Nevertheless, its correct registration and its later analysis can give us very useful information for the correct technical-financial management of the farm.

In previous articles we have talked about the importance of a good sow replacement, and we have explained methods to calculate an adequate sow replacement rate. In this article we are going to show an example of a bad replacement policy and its consequences throughout time on the productivity of the farm.

Normally, when we ask a farmer which is their average number of weaned piglets per sow they normally know this parameter, because its calculation is easy, nevertheless...

We saw aggressiveness in the sows, and we suspected that it could have been caused by the handling around the moment of the farrowing. We decided to register and analyze the data relative to the handling in order to confirm our suspicions.

The results reveal that the stress that the sows due to excessive interventions around the moment of the farrowing causes a clear increase in the pre-weaning mortality.

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?

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…

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.

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.

A strict schedule allows us to concentrate all the important events, and time periods where more attention/work is required, within the working days.

This article explains how the massive use of hormones helps synchronize heats and farrowings when workload scheduling, synchronization and production rates stability are priorities.

We can predict a sow's production based on the number of piglets born alive at first farrowing. In addition, the best sows' performance will outdo the others' continuously.

Apparently, lameness problems amount to just 5% of the causes for sending pigs to slaughter...