Driven by high corn and protein prices in 2008, Gary Thome and sons, Matt and Pat, have invested in a system of robotic hardware, wireless communication capabilities and a comprehensive feeding software package for Matt's new, 2,400-head, grow-finish barn aimed at getting the right feed to the right pigs at the right time. Retrospectively, even as feed costs have moderated, the Thomes feel the Feedlogic FeedSaver S (stationary) series system will pay for itself within two years.

Tucked in the rafters between the two rooms of the double-wide barn near Adams, MN, is the FeedSaver feed blending and delivery system. Four, 14-ton bins — two filled with a high-lysine base diet, two filled with a low-lysine base diet — are positioned at the end of the 122 × 164 ft. facility to move the base diets to the FeedSaver blending hopper.

When 45-50-lb. pigs are placed, gilts are loaded on one side of the barn, barrows on the other. The racetrack design from Hen-Way Mfg., Inc., Fairmont, MN, naturally creates pig movement in a clockwise direction through a series of four, one-way gates and pens, which eventually leads to a water court and an Automated Production Systems (AP) auto-sort scale.

During the first two weeks, pigs are put through training paces by moving them down one pen each day. After the fourth pen, pigs cycle back through the water court and the weigh scale — their only route back to the feeders.

Each side of the barn is divided into two major pen segments. The east pen, equipped with six, 8-hole, wet-dry feeders and water stations, claims one-third of the space, while the west portion accounts for two-thirds of the space and features four large pens with 15 wet-dry feeders running down the center of the pens, including supplemental water stations.

With the one-way gates locked open, pigs move freely from pen to pen the first week after stocking. The next week, the one-way gates are reset and pigs are moved through the pens to get them in the habit of moving through the barn.

Stocked with 1,000-1,200 pigs per side, the scales record 900-1,000 “hits” per day, indicating roughly 85% of the pigs cycle through once the routine is established. Of course, there's no way of knowing if the hits are exclusive, but Matt Thome feels it's unlikely that many pigs make more than one complete cycle per day. As pigs pass through the scale, it captures a running average weight of the pigs in the room.

The one-third, two-thirds barn split is at the heart of the design because the scale sorts the lighter pigs to the small pen where feeders contain a higher lysine diet.

“At first I just used the average weight from the prior day and set the scale to sort the ‘below average’ pigs to the small pen,” Matt explains. “The pen was too crowded, so I tried sorting off pigs that were 5 lb. lighter than the average. Then, there were too few pigs in the pen, so I settled at 3 lb. lighter than the average, which sorts off about one-fourth of the pigs. The stocking density is lower than the large end pens, an added benefit because the smaller pigs are usually less competitive at the feeder.”

Diet Changes On-the-fly

Swine nutritionist John Goihl, AgriNutrition, Inc., Shakopee, MN, has developed a multiphase feeding program using Feedlogic's feed consumption curves. Diets are tailored to gilt and barrows, respectively.

“John has calculated the very first feed the pigs should get and the very last feed pigs should get,” explains Gary Thome. “The system blends a different percentage of the first and last diet every day. So, the pigs start out at 100% of the first feed and as they grow, the percentage changes to 100% of the last feed as they reach market weight.”

“If you are sorting pigs by weight and you are feeding Phase 2 and 3 diets, then the light pigs are sorted to the small pen with the Phase 2 diet, and the rest get the Phase 3 diet,” Goihl explains. As the pigs approach the middle of the growth curve — between 120 and 150 lb. — they are receiving a 50-50 blend of the two diets.

The high and low diets are balanced using similar levels of synthetic-L lysine, which provides a consistent level of the amino acid regardless of the blending levels. “The Feedlogic system is driven by feed consumption, like any phased-feeding program using weights against standard feed consumption,” Goihl explains. “The multiphase diets are allocated to specific pig weight ranges easily tracked by the weigh scale.”

The process is seamless because the system is always using the same two base diets. Added benefits include fewer diets to manufacture and the flexibility to create different feeding programs suited to feed ingredient costs and pig performance requirements.

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