This Quarterly Benchmarking review offers some clues on how gestating sows performed in four different housing systems.

Additionally, this fourth article in the Benchmarking series continues to study the key performance indicators (KPIs) summarized from herds working with Swine Management Services (SMS, Fremont, NE).

This data set, from the third quarter of 2007 and featuring our traditional 52-week and 13-week breakout periods, allows producers to track how KPIs change with seasons, management and a variety of other factors (Table 1).

This periodic review reinforces the importance of effectively collecting and utilizing accurate production records in your daily management, and offers tips that can help you squeeze greater efficiencies out of your production system.

Sow Housing Focus

All producers are keenly aware that some of the largest pork production operations in the United States and Canada have decided to move away from individual gestation stalls in favor of alternative gestation housing systems. Most notably, those concerned with the well-being of gestating sows favor some type of penning system.

Few comparisons of stalls vs. pens have been made under similar management systems, comparable genetics and a host of other factors.

Likewise, comparisons between different types of gestation systems are virtually non-existent in the scientific literature.

SMS has segmented their reproductive performance data where the type of gestation housing was known. The four different types include:

• Pen gestation housing with a computerized feeder;

• Pen gestation system without an electronic feeder;

• A combination of pen and stall gestation housing (free stall); and

• Individual gestation stall housing.

First, a word of caution before examining the production differences between these different types of gestation housing systems. The adjoining tables represent field data, collected without “control” groups for comparison.

Management capabilities can have a considerable impact on field data, especially when measuring reproductive traits. For example, some of the differences could reflect parity differences.

None of the farms employed more than one gestation housing system in an attempt to compare the reproductive performance of like genetics and nutritional programs on a single site using different environments. Therefore, these data must be reviewed cautiously.

That said, many would argue that the best evidence comes from data collected in a “real world” setting. For lack of controlled tests, these field data can help advance the discussion about gestation housing options.

Field Data Reviewed

In the current data available for comparison, the breakout of different gestation housing options was:

• Five farms with a total of 4,788 sows utilized pens and computerized sow feeders;

• Two farms with a total of 1,300 sows utilized pen gestation only;

• Fifteen farms, totaling 22,273 sows, utilized a combination of gestation crates and pens; and

• Twenty-seven farms with a total of 70,677 sows used gestation stalls only.

Read more on Page 2