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Better Pork
December 2016
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slaughter in a special journal. Such
reasons include specific injuries,
disease, body condition, breeding
record and other factors such as poor
mothering ability. He feels that these
reasons often highlight weak points
in husbandry.
For instance, has enough atten-
tion been paid to selection in young
breeding stock for sound feet, legs
and framework? Where dry sows
are loose-housed in groups, is not
enough being done to prevent bully-
ing and biting injuries by separating
the most aggressive females?
Feeding replacements are also
considered to be an important aspect
in NRW where advisers say that the
females kept from breeding herd
production as future replacements
for the herd should be fed differently
from male litter members. For this
reason, the advice is to pen these
females separately. Daily liveweight
gain should not be too high. Around
600 grams is the limit advised for
conventional Landrace/Yorkshire
hybrids. And getting them used to
human interaction during rearing is
a priority, too. This, says Proebsting,
avoids a lot of stress for the animals
later in the breeding herd.
The Danish swine sector also
recommends that farmers note all de-
tails of why a sow must leave the herd
prematurely and use the journal as a
blueprint for preventative manage-
ment in this respect.
The country’s Pig Research
Centre publishes a 10-point plan to
help farmers select sows for longer
productive life. Recommendations
start with strong legs and sound feet.
The Danes emphasize that this aspect
must be appraised every time the
animal is ready for service, through-
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OPTIMIZING
SOW
OUTPUT
University of Vienna scientists have discovered that heritability for
longer production life is about the same as that for the factor “born
alive piglets per farrowing.”