Be Careful with Oxytocin Use in Sows
S.K. Linneen, J.M. Benz, S.S. Dritz, J.M. DeRouchey, R.D. Goodband and M.D. Tokach of Kansas State University explain how best to use oxytocin for sows in order to decrease farrowing time and birth interval as an aid to prevent stillbirths.

USDA Livestock and Products Annual and Semi-Annual Reports 2009
This provides links to the latest poultry industry data from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service GAIN Annual Reports for 2009. Within each article listed is a link to the full report, which includes all the tabular data that we have omitted from our...

Changing from Sow Gestation Crates to Pens: Problem or Opportunity?
The industry must develop a proactive approach of research and implementation of findings to get ahead of criticism and to take advantage of market forces that care about farm animal welfare, according to John J. McGlone of Texas Tech University and...

Change for Success
This article is a collection of the presentations at Change for Success, the first national Knowledge Transfer event held by BPEX at Stamford in the UK on 18 March 2009.

Water Supply
Water is essential for nearly all body functions, and even minor dehydration can result in reduced feed intake, lower daily gain, poorer feed conversion, reduced milk production and lower weaning weights. When performance problems are being investigated...

Ventilation
Managing fully controlled and automatically controlled natural ventilation (ACNV) systems is the focus this publication - number 21 in the series Action for Productivity from BPEX.

Health and Performance Improvements of Pigs Treated with DRAXXIN® (tulathromycin) Injectable Solution for Swine Respiratory Disease Under Field Conditions
Thayer C. Hoover, DVM from Pfizer Animal Health reviews the literature on the efficacy of Draxxin against swine respiratory disease and the positive effects of the product of pig performance.

UK Pig Disease Quarterly Surveillance Report - October-December 2008
The latest report from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) highlights a downturn in the incidence of PMWS but increased incidence of swine dysentery in East Anglia and PRRS continue to be of concern. There have been no outbreaks of Notifiable Diseases...

Maple Leaf's Lessons from the Listeriosis Crisis
"Do the right thing," an official from Canada's Maple Leaf Foods advised the audience at the Banff Pork Seminar 2009, describing the best response of a processor to a food contamination crisis.

USDA Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report - March 2009 [Updated]
This quarter's quarterly Hogs and Pigs report from the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Annual Pig Meat Industry Survey - 2009
Overall, a survey of over one hundred pig industry stakeholders in the UK conducted by BPEX in January 2009 gave rather more optimistic views than in similar results in 2007 and 2008. The industry was generally slightly more confident than last year but...

Fibre for Gestating Sows
At the 2008 Manitoba Swine Seminar, Professor Peter Brooks suggested that ad libitum feeding of sows during pregnancy may now be a practical proposition, and that silages and root crops may have a role in sow diets. ThePigSite editor, Jackie Linden, summarises...

Production Chains, Skills and Farming
The UK could suffer future food shortages unless the numbers of skilled people entering UK farming increases, writes ThePigSite senior editor, Chris Harris.

Persistence - the Active Ingredient against Boar Taint
Like many technological breakthroughs, the development of a vaccine to control boar taint has been far from simple.

Meat Intake and Mortality
A controversial new report has linked the consumption of red and processed meat with causes of death - in particular cancer, writes ThePigSite senior editor Chris Harris.

A Visit to a Modern Brazilian Swine Operation
Robert Chambers, swine and poultry structures and equipment engineer with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) describes his impressions of a visit to a new integrated pig operation in the mid-west of central Brazil.

Condition Scoring of Sows
Achieving an optimal average condition score of 3 throughout the breeding herd and minimising variation of condition scores should be the aims. Number 20 in the Action for Productivity series from BPEX is a practical guide on how to condition...

Performance and Health Improvements of Pigs Treated with DRAXXIN® (tulathromycin) Injectable Solution: A Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae Challenge Model
A field study showed the efficacy of DRAXXIN (tulathromycin) in an injectable solution in a Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae challenge model writes Thayer C. Hoover, DVM, from Pfizer Animal Health.

Philippines - Livestock and Products - 2009
The latest GAIN report from USDA Foreign Agricultural Service offers an update on the pig industry in the Philippines in a report subtitled Philippine Hog Industry Update. Last year, pork production was down and imports were up by 38 per cent....

US Pork Outlook Report - March 2009
By USDA, Economic Research Service - This article is an extract from the March 2009 issue of Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook Report. Pork production is now expected to be 1.4 per cent higher in 2009 than in 2008. Exports in January were...

Developing a Global Agenda for Farming
An increase in global agriculture trading through freer trading regulations could increase the worldwide benefits by $165 billion a year, writes ThePigSite senior editor, Chris Harris.

Prospects for EU Agricultural Markets 2008-2015
The shape of the European agricultural market over the next seven years will depend very much on the way it reacts to and recovers from the present global financial crisis, writes ThePigSite senior editor, Chris Harris.

Canadian Sow Herd Falls Again (March 2009)
By Chris Harris, Senior Editor, ThePigSite. Our snapshot of the ongoing global pig industry trends as reported in March 2009 Whole Hog Brief. To read the full detailed analysis including all the commentary and graphical data, subscribe to the...