Breaking through the 30-weaned-pig-per-year plateau

Courtesy Better Pork Magazine February 05 SUBSCRIBE BACK ISSUES CONTACT US

Pig production is taken seriously in Denmark. There, in a space equivalent to five or six per cent of the land mass of Ontario, just over 11,000 producers out of a population of 5.2 million people farrow about 1.3 million gilts and produce 24 million pigs annually. Henrik Jensen, a weaner producer who farms in Christiansminde on the island of Svendborg, is one of about 15 or so producers in Denmark weaning 30 pigs or more per sow. He sells 34,000 30-kilogram weaners per year from the 1,150-sow unit he owns jointly with a silent partner. In 2002, production surpassed 30 pigs per sow per year from his operation and, in recent months, weaned pig production reached the equivalent of 32.

Recently, Jensen toured across Canada talking about his production system. Here are his guidelines for producing 30 plus pigs per sow per year.

• Use gilts and sows that are genetically capable of high litter size.
• Breed gilts later than is customary; he cites a weight of 160 kilograms and nine months of age.
• Control boar exposure and use the "surprise effect" (ED readers now what that is?) at insemination.
• Use a team breeding approach to insemination. All sows in one group are bred in approximately 15 minutes on a particular morning of the week.
• Quickly identify return breeders and not-in-pig females.
• Feed a high energy diet for 28 days after breeding and from day 90 of gestation.
• Closely monitor farrowing to minimize stillbirths.
• Split suckling to ensure all piglets get colostrum.
• Extend lactation length for gilts to 30-35 days, using cross-fostered piglets.
• Use extensive fostering to minimize pre-weaning mortality.
• Maintain high sow feed intakes during lactation.

Growing gilts larger is probably the most important part of the management system. "If you don't breed the gilts later, don't even bother trying the rest," says Bernie Peet, marketing and technical services manager for Danbred North America. If gilts are smaller, they can't eat as much as a big gilt can, Jensen explains. He doesn't use hormones to induce heat, nor does he use them to ease birthing.

Jensen buys gilts from the same multiplier every nine weeks. They are quarantined for eight weeks in group pens on the nursery site, then put in stalls and heat checked daily, with no boars present. Gilts are marked with the breeding week colour at heat -- red, green and blue -- and are moved to the breeding unit seven days before their next heat. Farrowing is watched closely to minimize stillbirths. Suckling is split to ensure that the smallest piglets get at sows' teats first.

Here's how Jensen explains his weaning procedures. Piglets are removed at the sows' morning feeding on Wednesday. Sows are left in the crate and receive midday feed, then are moved to the breeding area on Thursday morning. The weaned sows get no feed until noon on Friday, when they get about eight kilograms each. They get 5.6 kilos of feed on Saturday and are fed to appetite on Sunday.

Continuous boar contact is provided Thursday mid-day to Sunday afternoon. Insemination is carried out on Monday and Tuesday with inseminations timed 24 hours apart. Sows that don't stand well, or where backflow occurs, are inseminated again eight to 12 hours later, then again after another 12 hours. A catheter is left in the sow after insemination and a new boar is placed in front of the sows.

The key objective is to minimize not-in-pig days, Jensen stresses. After breeding, a heat check is performed every day from breeding until sows leave the breeding area after four weeks. Each week, 36 sows are placed in group pens with individual feeders. Thin and fat sows move to gestation stalls. Thinner sows get 2.2-2.5 kilograms of feed per day, while good sows get 1.8-2 kilos of feed and "fit" sows receive a reduced diet of 1.5 kilos.

Lactation time for gilts is extended by using them as foster mothers after their own piglets are weaned. Longer lactation allows for better recovery by the uterus, explains Jensen, and results in more pigs per litter in the second and subsequent litters.

A whole litter of large piglets, five to seven days old, is fostered onto a gilt. When fostering is complete, she has 13 large piglets. The five-to-seven-day farrowed sow is fostered with surplus newborn piglets. Foster sows are normally second and third parity and their lactation length will be extended by 3-5 days.

There is a nursery room at the breeding unit and it is used as a buffer to keep pigs moving to the main nursery in a constant stream. Sows are weaned on Mondays and their pigs go to the breeding unit nursery. The smallest pigs at weaning are also moved to the nursery and are fed five times a day.

Gilts are never culled for litter size, Jensen says. From second parity onwards, sows are culled if litter size is lower than for gilts. Second-litter sows must have a minimum of 13 piglets or they are culled, as are sows that fail to show estrus 21 days after weaning, sows that show discharge at first return, return twice, or abort. Very few sows are culled because of foot and leg problems.

Jensen provides consulting services for other farms and says that the highest performing farms have clearly defined management routines for the key tasks, extensive and accurate systems of recording and pig identification, and clear targets that are regularly compared with actual performance.

Other keys to success include a well-trained and technically proficient staff, a manager or owner who is a good leader and motivator, and a team of workers totally committed to the goals of the business.

Jensen's pigs have a high health status but are mycoplasma-positive. Danish law requires farmers to have sows in loose pens for four weeks after breeding in new barns built after 2000.

Jensen says there are four workers in the barn and the tasks that are required are clearly defined. Pigs that need fostering are identified every day. Staff talk informally about meeting goals and there is a formal staff meeting every week.

The rewards for this? If production goals are met, Jensen takes the staff on a monthly social outing. There are no financial bonuses yet, but "it's coming," Jensen says. Barn staff work 37.5 hour weeks, which is the standard in Denmark. The manager works 42 hours. The European standard is five weeks holidays per year. Holidays aren't a labour issue he told Better Pork, just another challenge to meet. "We don't have a problem getting good people," he says.

One more pig per sow is worth $55,000 a year in added income, he points out. "You have to spend a little bit of money to make some more."

Jensen's next project may be to build another 1,150-sow unit or he may build a finishing barn, perhaps in Poland. Poland is a concern now that it has joined the EEC, Jensen says, noting that he would find it difficult to compete against the East European nation if barn workers there are paid 6,000 euros a year while his are paid 30,000 euros.

Can it really be done in Canada?

Find out here...
Don Stoneman, Better Pork Magazine visits the Bloxsidges of Holbrook to review their success in adopting some of the techniques pioneered by Danish producer Henrik Jensen. But they are finding that the idea of weaning a gilt of her piglets and replacing them with 13 large, hungry pigs is hard to embrace!

Reproduced Courtesy Better Pork Magazine - February 2005