Farrowing Supervision

Another practice gaining some favor in the pork industry is extending the working day to ensure a stockperson is present during farrowing.

SMS identified a group of producers who practice extended hours, defined as providing at least 12 hours of attendance in farrowing.

Table 3 summarizes and compares the “extended hours” farms to the average of all farms in Table 1.

The farrowing rate of sows from producers using the extended farrowing hours was 2.4% higher when compared to the average of all producers (Table 3).

The percentage of pigs born alive relative to the total number of pigs born was from 0.6 to 1% greater for the average to the top 10% of producers practicing extended worker hours when compared to all producers in the database. On average, this translated into 1.1% greater piglet survival when compared to the average of all herds (81.8% for herds with extended hours vs. 80.7% survival across all herds).

However, this did not translate into more pigs weaned per litter as the values for number of pigs weaned per sow farrowed were nearly identical for producers using extended hours compared to all farms (Table 3), while PW/MF/Y was over 1.5 pigs greater for those using the extended hours practice when compared to all herds. This advantage was largely attained by a higher farrowing rate from the extended-hours group.

Some Farrowing Practices Pay

From this data set, it is clear that some practices can improve farrowing room performance. Pork producers should evaluate all practices, such as extended farrowing hours and induced farrowing, to determine whether they provide the level of performance improvement necessary to justify the additional expense associated with them.

The data does not show, however, the variation in performance that some farms realize, while others fail to experience a similar advantage.