«We keep pigs only for one reason — to make money», — the presentation of the famous British expert Simon Grey began with these words at the IV International Congress Profitable Pig Production. You will find his advice how to avoid the most common mistakes in pig production in this article. It is easy to be successful, the only thing that is necessary for that is to evaluate the situation correctly and make a right decision!

Pig production is business when one can earn a lot of money as well as lose not less. The job is complicated by 11-monthproduction cycle (from the moment of sow insemination till the sales of animals), that is why it’s not possible to know how much we will earn for a pig or spend on its housing.

We of course make a plan and budget. But prices for feeds and animals (our main сosts) depend on the demand and supply on world market. This in turn is influenced by plenty of unpredicted factors (weather, natural disasters, and wars). And when we add investments for building and reconstruction it becomes clear that pig production is a hard ball. To make it successful one must understand what factors influence it and what mistakes should be avoided.

All enterprises have the same basis: to receive profit they must sell. What do we sell on pig farms? KILOS of pork in live or slaughter weight. We DON’T sell PIGS. If you have more animals it doesn’t mean that you’ll earn more. Maximum income of a farm is provided by maximum sales of kilos of pork. Nothing else matters. We MISTAKENLY evaluate the efficiency of the enterprise by such criteria as feed conversion rate, average daily gain, death rates, weight at weaning and so on. But they are secondary and variable. The main problem of such criteria is that they do not increase sales directly (they don’t increase the quantity of kilos of produced meat) and do not always mean better efficiency.

The first mistake: be careful with statistics and figures

To take the right decisions for business development one must have accurate figures about production costs and animal performance. The given above example proves that if you don’t have ALL the information, figures can be very misleading.

It’s a pity to admit but Ukraine is not an exception among countries that have problems with record keeping. Such problem as false date has a very harmful consequence — it doesn’t allow to analyze the result (physical and financial) of using a certain product or of completed piece of job. Falsification of results can be caused by several factors:

1) Old traditions when figures on paper are more important than eventual result

2) Premium systems: bonuses for achieving results, which can be easily falsified

3) Norms that are ascribed despite a real situation on the farm

4) The desire to be better than rivals

While working with figures one must not get hooked on minor details. Almost each farm has the «epidemy» of pursuing better figures of born alive, their weight, feed conversion efficiency, etc. It’s wrong! The main task of all figures is to answer one question: what should be done to achieve maximum production volume (maximum kilos of sold pork) at minimal costs.

The second mistake: Use time and space correctly

Space and time are two limiting factors of pig production. There are a lot of farms that sell pigs in low weight and explain if with lack of space. But only a half of producers can answer the question «How many places do you have?» If the quantity of places is known the following question will be «How many pigs do you have?». The number of free places can be determined only by means of these two figures. By the way the result often becomes a great surprise for the owners. As the fact that pigs are in every pen doesn’t mean that the farm is 100 % filled up. Kilos of sold meat per square meter is the only principle to determine the efficiency of space usage.

How much does the empty space cost? It’s another question that usually brings to a deadlock. Its not possible to have kilos of meat if there are no pigs in the unit. And the farm meanwhile lose money (amortization, electricity, wages, etc. ).

Now you have to count how much you will lose if the building is empty or partially filled up. It is quite natural that farm buildings are empty sometimes, for example, during cleaning and disinfection or after sales of pigs of certain weight. Practice shows that nursery units can be filled up by 95%. If that figure is lower, you lose potential income.

Visiting farms you can often hear that pigs are given more space for better growth. There is a grain of truth here. As if animals are not given enough space they will die. A golden middle is needed. The standards are: 0.3 m2 for growing and 0.75 m2 for finishing pigs. The researches and calculations prove that the optimal density must be 0.27 m2 for growing and 0.67 m2 for finishing pigs to receive maximum kilos of meat for square meter (at the same time these sizes doesn’t mean best performance).

There is a good advice concerning the effective time usage: keep pigs longer on the farm and sell when they gain more kilos. One may say that the animals may become fat. But modern breeds have high lean meat percentage. «What to do with expenses» — one will ask. Such pigs need only feeding. Calculations prove that with increased weight fixed costs (amortization of the building, wages and so on) and feed costs decrease as they are shared between more kilos.

1. What is the optimal quantity of gilts on the farm?
2. What system of employees’ motivation is the best?
3. What formula is the best for bonuses calculation?
4. How to reduce unnecessary costs determined by the requirements of the past?
5. What is the optimal quantity of employees on the farm?
6. What is the main rule of the right decision?