Dr. John Carr, independent pork industry consultant

It is very easy to convince yourself that your farm is productive and yet you are still not making money. There can be only one reason — you have not realized that there are only two aspects of production that can be proven. The amount of pig meat you have been paid for and the physical size of your farm. Pig farming is not only about 30 pigs per sow per year or any other per sow parameter for that matter. While these numbers are useful in telling you where on the farm performance is suboptimal they say nothing about the potential of the farm. When you accept the truth about productive pig farming you ask the other question: «How to sell the maximum kilos of meat from the space I have? The answer is easy — you have to optimize Pig Flow.

To illustrate how to develop a pig flow model we will create an example farm. On this farm we have 2,166 m² of total finishing floor. Pigs enter the finishing area at 30kg and leave at 110 kg. The farm strictly follows «all-in/all-out» principles. Weaning is every Thursday.

Now let’s study how to make the farm work to the fullest extent.

In truth there is no one answer, however there is a method of providing an answer that requires answers to 8 questions.

Question 1: What is the batch size?

This is a function of time. The question to ask is how often will my farm turn? An typical variant is once a week (a 7 day batch system) and weaning every 27 days (4 week weaning).

What is the first day of the batch? the day after weaning, in this example a Friday. It is not Monday when weaned sows will start coming into heat. The batch must include the gilts that cycle on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If we fail to do this these gilts «miss» their batch and enter the next one.

To even out production and follow the principle «all in — all out», with 27 day weaning, we need 5 rooms, all of the same size and with the same number of crates.

Question 2: What’s the growth rate?

To know how many rooms are going to be required in the finishing end of the farm we require to understand the growth rate of the pigs.

A common growth rate: 30 kg at 10 weeks, 110 kg can be achieved at 28 weeks. Therefore, from 30 kg at 10 weeks of age to 110 kg at 28 weeks of age we have 18 weeks for finishing. If we add one week to empty the room, clean and disinfection = there will be19 weeks in the finishing area per batch. The mathematics then is easy: 2166 m² finishing into 19 batches provides 114 m² per batch.

Question 3: What is the space requirement?

The requirements vary from country to country. In general around the world, a pig that weighs 110 kg requires a minimum of 0,65–0,70m² (when the floor is fully slatted). To simplify the process, I’ll give my example farm 1 m² per finished pig. So if I have 114 m² per batch, than one batch is 114 pigs finished.

Question 4: How many pigs are sold per batch?

Indeed this question should be formed in the other way: How many kilos of meat are sold per batch? Let’s count the target factor: 114 pigs × 110 kg = 12 540 kg. What is more important is that you must achieve this target 52 weeks a year: 12 540 kg × 52 weeks = 652 080 kg per year. This is a real target! This is how you’ll earn money!

Question 5: What is the post-weaning mortality?

The average mortality rate for a farm with a good health status is 5%. It can be reduced to 3% with efficient management and vaccines.. So 114 minus the 5% losses = MINIMUM 120 a week weaned/batch.

If we continue with our farm development we can now add the required nursery requirement. As the pigs are weaned at 4 weeks and move into the finishing accommodation at 10 weeks of age, we require 6 rooms. Because 120 are weaned and the oldest pigs are 30 kg and we know that a 30 kg pig requires 0.3 m², each nursery therefore, requires to be a minimum of 36 m².

1) How many pigs weaned per batch farrowing place?

2) How many pigs farrow per batch?

3) How many breeding females must be served per batch?

4) When to cull?

You can find answers for these and other questions in the full version of the interview in the magazine “Profitable Pig Production”, №3 (15) 2013.