Page 36 of articles about management

Each batch of sows is identified with a different colour, so we will only have to look at the colour of the pegs

With a water tank above the pregnant sows cages we ensure their water supply.

By ear tagging a gilt in the group with its birth date we will always know the age of the replacement gilts.

There are many home-made options that allow us to carry out this so important technique on our farms.

The weaning-to-service interval is a short but vital period regarding the productivity of the sow.

Having a piglet feeder and a lamp in each farrowing pen avoids the annoying moving of these items between rooms and sometimes between buildings.

In a system with 2.35 farrowings/sow/year, more than 14 piglets born per farrowing, more than 11 weaned piglets/farrowing and around 1% of losses at weaning; what can we do to improve this?

Is the right strategy to get a farm stable, that is, control clinical signs reducing the economic impact of the disease; or should a farm adopt strategies to go “negative”? As for other questions in the epidemiological field, our answer is “it depends”.

The farrowing interval is one of the production parameters more commonly used as an indicator of the production efficiency of a farm.

Knowing how to make the most of space in our farrowing rooms is a key point, not only when using foster sows, but also for increasing the age at weaning. The farrowing pen is the most expensive pen at the farm, and we must obtain the maximum possible efficiency out of it.

This article suggests some solutions to the main problems encountered in pregnancies with group housing.

This trick consists in offering cheap manipulable materials that satisfy the pigs' needs.

The two main factors that make that certain farms have not been successful adapting to the animal welfare regulations are design and handling/management.

Which factors affect the WTSI? Among the factors with a biggest influence we have: inadequate intake during lactation, season of the year, and length of the lactation.