Articles - Management

Medication of the water in the tank in a quick way and without having to go up a ladder, and achieving a good mixing of the product.

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.

System for avoiding carpal injuries in suckling piglets.

When using nurse sows (foster sows) whilst making some piglets "go forwards" before the expected time we end up weaning them one week before. This poses certain problems.

In a very near future we will have an enormous amount of data with more speed and ease than ever, and also from very different origins.

The goal is to increase the agility of the reading process of the body condition of the sows using the Renco device.

The goal is to make the management during the gestation easier using a different colour spray colour each week to mark the tasks carried out with the sows.

Using tie wraps to tie quickly and efficiently navel cords of newborn piglets.

The desired result of the strategic management of replacement gilts at a company level is to minimize the economical losses potentially caused by PRRS.

Only the 17% of the companies use more than the 75% of the collected information and only the 27% of them think that they use it better than their competitors.

As of the 3rd-4th day of lactation it is not recommendable anymore to replace small piglets and piglets with poor a growth rate for good piglets, because it is probable that the teat that has to be used has already dried off due to the scarce stimulation received for several consecutive days.

In many occasions, the location of the heat lamp very near to the head of the sow can bother her.

The author considers which is the ideal day for the mating and sets out the improvements in the results obtained when weaning on Monday.

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.

This trick allows us to save hypothermic piglets easily, quickly and with surprising results.

How to make that the sows start their lactation with the maximum number of viable piglets.

Characteristics of the installations, genetics, medications, feeding, etc. of Spanish feedlots based on data of 452 farms that pertain to nine of the 25 biggest pig integration companies in the country.

A simple method to facilitate the daily calculation of the nurse sows needed for the correct running of the farrowing quarters in a hyperprolific sows system.

When there are not enough teats, the strongest piglet always occupies the place of the weak one, that is left without milk to suckle.

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...

The aim of this trick is the improvement of the quality of the environment in the farrowing quarters for the sows as well as for the piglets, saving on energy consumption by means of the manufacturing of nests.

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.

To accurately predict sow body weight by using their flank to flank measurement in order to determine daily feed intake or accurate medication dose.

In the previous piece of advice we saw that in small farms it could be interesting to maintain a certain order when entering the sows in the farrowing quarters depending on their parturition. Nevertheless, in big farms or in farms that group together many farrowings at the same time we will have to think about the order in another way, because if the farrowing quarters are not very big we will have the same batch of sows housed in several rooms.