More in Reproduction

In recent years, the goal of many sow units has been to achieve the elusive 30 pigs/sow/year (P/S/Y) production goal. Several units have already achieved this goal, and an elite few North American producers have surpassed the 30-pig mark...More

A variety of sow software management programs are used to estimate the genetic parameters and breeding values across herds, so a close examination of the traits used and the emphasis on each trait is warranted...More

Even as a young boy, Terry Hauder, part owner and manager of the Hauder-Martin PC breed-to-wean facilities near Milford, NE, had a passion for pigs. “When we came home from vacation, the first thing I would do is run out to check the pigs in the barns”...More

A closer look at the concept of group or batch pig farrowing and weaning....More

The reference, of course, is to the benchmark of 20 pigs/sow/year (p/s/y) being updated to the lofty goal of 30 p/s/y...More

Understanding and solving lameness in pigs could save producers $23 million a year. Anna Johnson, an Iowa State University animal scientist, will be leading a research project to understand lameness in pigs and provide solutions to producers...More

A few weeks ago, a client asked us to review his production numbers and give him some suggestions on how to improve using the current labor pool. Producers are putting more effort into saving more pigs in the farrowing area. One of the key challenges to this focus is keeping weekends fully staffed. With this in mind, we took a closer look at the day of the week sows are weaned and created a model that will help us look at the weaning question....More

The industry in the nation’s second-largest pork producing state, North Carolina, can be described in many ways, but stagnant it is not. All pork producers tackle a confluence of challenges...More

In last week’s article (Weekly Preview, June, 3, 2011), we took a closer look at the effect of seasonal infertility on farrowing rate, repeat services, wean-to-first service interval and female death loss....More

As the weather warms up, you need to make sure your breeding crew adjusts weekly or batch group breeding targets to allow for a drop in farrowing rate of females bred during the summer breeding season. Since we do analysis for a large number of sow ......More

In his senior year of high school, Bill Flowers’ parents gave him money to buy a class ring. He spent the money on a pair of bred gilts — a choice that may have sealed his destiny to spend his life’s work in the swine industry...More