How to reduce the number of non-productive days on a pig farm

How to reduce the number of non-productive days on a pig farm

1. Non-productive days and annual average litter LSY

NPD: The number of days a producing sow has neither pregnancy nor lactation in a year, called non-production days.

NPD is the most critical indicator affecting the production efficiency of sows, and directly affects the economic benefits of pig farms.

Average annual litter parity per sow LSY = (365-NPD)/(GL+LL)

GL: length of gestation; LL: length of lactation

So the smaller the NPD, the more litters per year!

2. The source of non-production days

☀Gilts that are more than 240 days old and have not been mated: the suitable age is 210-240 days old;

☀Sows that are not in heat after weaning: overdue;

☀Sows with problems after breeding: returning to oestrus, miscarriage, empty pregnancy, death, etc.

3. The cost of non-production days

※ Calculate the cost loss for each non-productive day (NPD) based on the production cost:

Cost per weaned piglet × PSY (Number of weaned piglets provided per sow year) ÷ 365

※ Calculate the actual cost loss per NPD (breeding pig area) based on the actual annual expenditure:

Annual farm expenditure ÷ the number of piglets sold in the year × PSY ÷ 365

Taking the cost of weaning a piglet at 310 yuan and PSY24 as an example, one NPD=300×24÷365=20.38 yuan.

4. Strategy for controlling non-production days in production

★ 1. Scientific management to avoid the occurrence of NPD

01Focus on varieties and establish populations with excellent genes

02Make an elimination plan and maintain a good parity structure

03Strengthen the management of gilts and increase the utilization rate of gilts

04Strengthen the management of weaned sows to reduce overdue non-estrus pigs and reduce NPD

05High-quality breeding improves conception rate and prevents NPD

06Focus on pre-pregnancy management, reduce pregnancy failure, and prevent NPD

★2. Deal with problem pigs in time to reduce NPD

2.1 Establishment of standardized operating procedures for situation investigation

14 days after mating, check for return

2.2 Establishment of standardized operating procedures for pregnancy testing

25 days and 35 days after mating, two B-ultrasound pregnancy tests;

2.3 Establishment of standardized operating procedures for visual inspection

After 60 days of pregnancy, visual inspection for pregnancy;

2.4 Establishment of standardized operating procedures for problematic sow handling:

Extended sow

Poor body condition after weaning and reproductive diseases are the main reasons for overdue sows. Heat shock in summer and unreasonable estrus checks are the reasons for overdue sows.

Operational measures

➵Short-term optimal feeding of sows after weaning to provide a suitable environment for weaned sows and reduce stress;

➵ Compound amoxicillin + multidimensional + glucose can be added to the feed for health care;

➵Increase light intensity (150 LUX, 16h/day);

➵ Mix groups once a week to strengthen situation management;

➵ If there is no estrus 18 days after weaning, inject PG600. If various measures have been taken after weaning, but there is no estrus within 30 days, they will be eliminated.

return sow

Find out the reason for returning to estrus. For returning to estrus caused by diseases and other factors, first use drugs to treat them, and then breed them in the next estrous period; eliminate sows that have returned to estrus twice in a row.

Negative pregnancy test, empty pregnancy

Check the breeding files, B-ultrasound repeatedly confirms the empty pregnant sows, and promptly picks them out to the breeding barn; decides whether to use PG600 and other hormone treatment according to the breeding time; generally 40 empty sows after breeding, inject PG6001 head, 10 days later Still not in estrus, that is, 50 days after mating, there is no estrus and no signs of estrus, and they will be eliminated directly.

aborted sow

Sows that abort after pregnancy should be injected with cloprostinol + anti-inflammatory treatment in time, and the aborted sows need to be bred at least 18 days later; Prevention and control of micosin.

While reducing NPD, it is also improving the productivity of pig herds; it is more sensible to improve management to avoid NPD than to deal with it in time when NPD occurs; we need solutions, and more importantly, we need to understand the causes of NPD and solve the problem fundamentally.

Adjusting the parity structure of pig herds, formulating breeding pig elimination standards and health care plans, and preventing and purifying key reproductive diseases in breeding pigs are issues that every professional pig raising manager needs to pay continuous attention to.

5. Specific measures to reduce the number of non-production days:

5.1. Provide a comfortable environment for sows: Pig farms experience high temperatures in summer, and the temperature in some areas can even reach 40°C. The cooling measures in pig houses cannot effectively control the occurrence of heat stress in sows. The heat stress of the sows is obvious, the labor process is generally prolonged, and the sows have frequent inflammations. Under the background of heat stress, the productivity of sows is generally insufficient, and the farrowing process is generally not smooth, and the proportion of sows with excessively long delivery process is relatively high. At the same time, the long labor process will cause the sows to recover slowly after delivery, the self-cleaning function of the uterus will decline, and the fragments of placenta will stay in the uterus, and then the cervix will gradually shrink and close after 3 to 4 days after delivery. The remaining fragments of placenta and other lochia that have not been discharged Nature has become a "culture medium" for bacteria to breed, and uterine inflammation is imminent. Occurrence of uterine inflammation directly leads to non-oestrus of sows after weaning, pus in the uterus during weaning and estrus, incompatibility for breeding, return of estrus after mating, early embryo death and abortion, reduction in litter size, and even abnormal culling of sows . The occurrence of these problems will increase the number of non-productive days of sows and seriously affect the overall production level of pig farms.

5.2. Reasonable replenishment of gilts: The following misunderstandings are common now: the first is to extend the parity of sows, and the sows with parity 8 to 9 will continue to be used, but the reproductive performance is relatively low; the second is to reduce the income of gilts. The age and body weight of the mating group, Xinmei gilts have been mated in only 7 months of 120 kg. On the surface, it reduces the number of non-productive days of sows, but in fact it has a fundamental effect on the lifelong fertility of sows influences. The management of gilts is a systematic project. The quality of gilt management directly determines the future productivity level of pig farms. Pig farms generally ignore the cultivation of gilts and do not have strict production management procedures, such as feeding special gilts. Pig feed, temptation management, environmental control, appropriate configuration space, proper exercise and bar adjustment, reproductive nutritional supplements, etc. Neglect of these problems leads to anoestrus in age-appropriate gilts, significantly increasing the number of non-productive days in sows.

5.3. Refining feeding and management of lactating sows, shortening the interval from weaning to mating: the interval from weaning to mating is an important part of the non-productive days, accounting for about 50% of the non-productive days. Although most of them are 5-7 days, they can pass good Feed management, improve weaning estrus rate to reduce. Practice has proved that the body condition of sows at weaning is closely related to the interval from weaning to estrus, so the shortening of the time interval from weaning to mating can be achieved by refining the feeding management of lactating sows, standardizing the delivery operation in the farrowing room, strengthening the environmental control of the farrowing room, and maintaining the postpartum 5 It can be achieved by gradually increasing the amount of daily feed, increasing the level of feed amount during the peak period, and reducing the weight loss of sows during lactation.

5.4. Strengthen the feeding and management of pigs to be mated to increase the conception rate: every mismatch after mating will prolong the non-productive days of the entire pig herd. Therefore, the breeding house needs to strengthen the breeding management of the pigs to be bred, refine the situation inspection work, and improve the level of timely breeding in order to increase the conception rate and reduce the number of non-productive days.

5.5. Standardize the pregnancy inspection work, deal with mismatched pigs in a timely manner and breed them as soon as possible: pregnancy inspection work is currently the most problem-prone link in pig farms. However, some pig farms only understand that the mismatch rate has a greater impact on the mating farrowing rate, but ignore that the detection time of mismatched pigs will also have a greater impact on production. In fact, the mismatch rate is only a process monitoring data of the mating farrowing rate, and it cannot truly reflect the final farrowing performance of the pig farm, because the pig farms with a low mismatch rate, such as lagging pregnancy tests, and poor handling of mismatched pigs In time, it may also prolong the number of non-production days, resulting in the number of healthy piglets provided per sow and production efficiency not as good as pig farms with high mismatch rates. Therefore, while paying attention to the mismatch rate, it is also necessary to standardize the pregnancy inspection work. For example, pigs that are empty pregnant must be detected within 90 days, and pigs that return to oestrus must be detected within 40 days. Invalid feeding time for breeding pigs.

5.6. Timely identification of culled pigs for takeaway to reduce feeding waste: In theory, it is the most economical way to cull pigs on the day of culling. However, the business model of most pig farms limits only 1-2 takeaways per month. Therefore, pig farms can require that once sows that meet the elimination standards are found on the production line, they should be picked out in a timely manner for differential breeding, and the number should be reported every day, so that the farm department can grasp the number of sows to be cleaned up in a timely manner and take them out as soon as possible, thereby reducing waste of resources. The identification of weaned pigs should be identified in advance in the farrowing room to prevent the elimination of sows and weaned pigs for optimal feeding.

5.7. Strengthen the treatment of overdue pigs and reduce ineffective feeding time: Overdue pigs should be raised in batches and divided into estrus periods, and the measures for promoting estrus should be refined. The sows that have not been in estrus in the 2 estrus period should be eliminated in time to reduce the invalid feeding time. It is worth noting that some overdue pigs are not in estrus, but that they are not found due to insufficient estrus checks, and more attention should be paid when breeding in large pens in breeding sheds.

5.8. Strengthen the care of abnormal pigs and reduce the occurrence of abortion and death: Abnormal abortion and death of pregnant pigs will not only directly affect the breeding and delivery rate, but also lead to the extension of non-productive days in the pig farm. Under normal circumstances, if the abortion and death of pregnant pigs exceed 1% of the number of matings in the batch, it is abnormal and should be alerted.

6. Summary:

The number of non-productive days of sows is eroding the economic benefits of the pig farm and increasing the hidden cost of pig farm equipment. The effective control of the number of non-productive days is the trump card that determines the final performance of the pig farm. Strengthening the monitoring of non-production days is conducive to increasing the annual parity of sows and the number of healthy piglets provided per sow per year. Only by reducing the number of non-production days to below the ideal level of 40 can we effectively improve the performance of pig farms, reduce production costs, and realize the dream of more pig farms with fewer deaths.