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Every farmer has their own way of recording sow matings: some use a notebook, others a calendar, and still others printed pages from a sow management software... The important thing is that it is a simple, efficient, and effective method.
The record should contain at least the essential data about the sow's mating, which can be reduced to three items:
- Date
- Sow number
- Boar number
Of course, it would be recommended that this data be supplemented with other data that are not as essential but that are useful for reproductive management, such as notes on the sow that are considered important. For example, if she is returned to estrus, if she has undergone hormone treatment, if she has any problems, if we are currently testing a particular catheter, a new insemination method, etc.
It is mandatory to keep a paper record of matings, even for those who use computer programs, to have a backup copy in case of loss of electronic data.
For several years, SUIVET has offered a logbook in which each page corresponds to a week of the year, where all the matings performed during the week can be recorded: the previous page and the following page contain the matings of the respective weeks.
This "weekly" management of the register facilitates the annotation and subsequent consultation of the data, even in the management of batch farrowing systems.
On this occasion, we present a weekly register that has an additional feature: it is designed in the style of address books (like the old paper telephone books), and on the right-hand side there are 52 tabs, corresponding to the weeks of the year.
The reason is that in modern pig management, all calculations, reproductive considerations, etc. are done in weekly multiples. The estrous cycle of sows is three weeks, lactation takes place at three or four weeks, in some countries sows must be grouped (welfare regulations) four weeks after service, etc...
Thus, by having a notebook with weekly tabs, it is possible to trace the sows back to a particular group.
If we are in week 20 and we have to move the sows from the crates to the pens, just put your finger on number 16, open the page, and you will have the list of sows.
If a sow returns to estrus, simply open week 17 to find the previous mating and erase it.
And so on...