European Food Safety Authority Report on MRSA in Breeding Pigs
Report of the Task Force on Zoonoses Data Collection on a proposal for technical specifications for a baseline survey on the prevalence of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in breeding pigs¹

I Want it all... and want it now... Eight ball plan could show you how
By Sue Corning, PIC UK. This is a challenging time for the pig industry and indeed the whole supply chain. There are decisions you can make today that will make a difference, or checks that can help confirm and tweak the decisions you have made to optimise...

Managing the Sow and Gilt Estrous Cycle
By Jerry May, Extension Educator, Pork AoE Team and Ron Bates, State Swine Specialist, Michigan State University. At times, managers of sow farms of all sizes are challenged by the availability of sows and/or gilts in standing heat.

The production of breeding material with a good health status
By Geertjan van Groenland, veterinary surgeon, Topigs. Animal health and breeding go hand in hand. The top breeders in the sector work with material with a good health status. By starting eradication programmes at these nucleus breeding farms, it has...

More Accurate Breeding for Conformation
By Abe Huisman, Hypor R&D. Introduction of conformation index makes breeding more accurate

Summer Infertility - An Overview
By PIC. You will have seen over the last few months that we have sent you a series of information on summer infertility.

Summer Infertility - Part 3 of 4 - A Vets Perspective
Annie Davis from George Veterinary Group and Julia James from Larkmead Veterinary Group give us their perspective on the incidence of summer infertility, highlighting the main problems caused and key pointers on how you can help manage it on farm.

Summer Infertility - Part 2 of 4 - Hygiene, Strategy, Boars and Semen Storage
By PIC. PIC have produced a number of informative publications to help producers manage the incidence of summer infertility. Part 2 of this series looks at service hygiene, service strategy and semen storage.

Summer Infertility - Part 1 of 4 - How to prepare for it
By PIC. As summer approaches it is important to start to think about alleviating the problem of summer infertility in your herd.

Selecting Gilts for Lifetime Productivity
By Dr. Todd See, Swine Genetics Specialist, North Carolina State University. Simultaneous advances have been made in the number of pigs a sow can produce each year, predominantly due to management, and in lean (growth rate and percentage), predominantly...

Comparative AI in pigs and cattle
By Stuart Revell - Senior Veterinary Surgeon (Research) Genus/ABS. When studying comparative reproduction in farmed mammals, they don’t come much more different than cattle and pigs.

Thinking boar feeding
By Mick Hazzledine, Premier Nutrition and published in PIC's Pig Genomics Journal - A quick look in the scientific literature quickly reveals a mass of papers on the reproduction of pigs.

The Changing Mineral Status of High Producing Sows
By Don Mahan and published in the Midwest Swine Nutrition Conference 2006 - With the introduction of high producing maternal lines into commercial swine herds, the number of pigs born, weaned and the subsequent increase in birth and weaning weights are...

30.02 - Thirty pigs in a calendar year becomes reality
By Jim Long, President Genesus Genetics / Keystone Pig Advancement Inc Canada - There are 7.5 million sows in Canada and the United States on 40,000 plus farms. The latest annual PigCHAMP data mean indicates pig’s weaned/female/year is 20.63.

Outdoor AI - Top Five Tips from BQP
Paul Arundel, BQP’s Breeding Farm Manager, highlights his top five AI tips for a successful outdoor service system.

Boosting Productivity of a Sow Herd
By Steve Newing and published by PIC - The author, Steve Newing, is a herd manager on a 650 sow herd indoor breeding unit, New House Farm in Oxfordshire, owned by Mr T Blanchard. It was formerly a PIC nucleus farm. Finished pigs are marketed through Thames...

Midwest Swine Nutrition Conference 2006
Hosted by the Indiana Farm Bureau - This article is a collection of the research topics discussed at the Midwest Swine Nutrition Conference 2006.

What’s new in damline liquid genetics?
By Caroline Blaken, PIC Technical Sales Support - PIC’s new high-throughput marker discovery programme has resulted in a pipeline of thousands of genetic markers for evaluation within PIC’s breeding programme.

KSU Swine Day 2006: Predicting Boar Growth Rates
By R. C. Sulabo, J. Quackenbush, R. D. Goodband, M. D. Tokach, S. S. Dritz, J. M. DeRouchey, and J. L. Nelssen - This article is a collection of papers presented during KSU's Swine Day 2006.

Quality AI pays
By Malcolm Turley, Gene Transfer Manager, PIC USA - Since PIC entered the "Gene Transfer" business in 1994, the use of AI in the US swine industry has grown from less than 10% to more than 82% of the matings performed using AI.

KSU Swine Day 2006: Porcine Umbilical Cord Matrix Stem Cells
By R. Carlin, D. Troyer, M. Weiss, B. Schultz, and D. Davis - This article is a collection of papers presented during KSU's Swine Day 2006.

Competition from Eastern Europe and Beyond - New Players in the Global Pork Industry
By Fiona Boal and presented at the 2006 Banff Pork Seminar - The twenty-first century pork industry is evolving at a rapid pace. It is characterised by increased levels of global competition, expansion of industrialized production, vertically integrated...

Introduction to Livestock Marketing
Written by the Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Department of Alberta Government.