Batch farrowing attracts growing interest in Ontario
Saturday, August 8, 2015
The transition to batch farrowing can be challenging and extra labour is needed at farrowing, but the rewards are in better biosecurity and greater efficiencies
by DON STONEMAN
At the 480-sow Kraayenbrink farm near Moorefield, a typical weaning day starts at 4:30 a.m. and wraps up nearly 10 hours later. That sounds like a "bad news" kind of day.
There's plenty of good news, though. There are only 10 weaning days a year, every 37 days, and there are lots of people involved in moving roughly 1,400 pigs. It's part of a management system called batch farrowing adopted by the Kraayenbrinks just over two years ago.
Tim Blackwell, a veterinarian with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, estimates that less than 10 per cent of production in Ontario is batch-farrowed and very few producers have made the transition, "although many of us believe that batch farrowing is the answer to a lot of problems."
Dr. Christine Pelland of South West Ontario Veterinary Services in Stratford says interest in batch farrowing is rising, largely through word of mouth. Health concerns are a driver, particularly PED and PRRS. Emptying rooms for an extended period of time to allow for a thorough cleaning rids barns of mycoplasma and a number of other diseases that plague the pork industry. There are also labour and other efficiencies to be gained, particularly for relatively small operations such as the Kraayenbrink farm.
The Kraayenbrinks annually market 5,000 to 6,000 pigs as breeding stock through Alliance Genetics Canada and the remaining 7,000 as market hogs. They also crop 300 acres and do some custom field work.
Since the spring of 2013, they have managed their sows in four groups, synchronizing females in each group to be bred and also to farrow in a few days, allowing labour to be strategically deployed in the barn and fields.
"If you are watching sows farrowing, you might as well watch a lot," says Gerrit Kraayenbrink, 25, who manages the rented sow barn a few miles away from the home farm. "When the last (sow) is farrowed, you don't need to come back again" to check at night. Anna Kraayenbrink, 20, modestly allows that her role in the barn is mostly farrowing pigs. She also cross-fosters the piglets when it's necessary. "You've got a lot of pigs and a lot of sows; you've got a lot of options to foster," says Gerrit.
For example, weaning took place on the Kraayenbrink farm on May 22 and farrowing rooms were thoroughly washed and dried before farrowing started on May 27, with most pigs farrowing on May 30 and 31. The average age of weanlings is 28 days. A batch of about 1,400 pigs weaned in early May weighed an average of 8.5 kilograms.
Batch farrowing turns the relatively small farrow-to-finish operation into an all-in-all-out system with the efficiencies of a larger farm. There are 10 semen deliveries a year rather than every week. With fewer actual breeding days and fewer days when pigs are treated, less expensive semen and vaccines go stale. Delivery charges for these products are reduced.
There's also time to focus on pressure-washing and drying farrowing rooms before the next group is brought in. There have been no scours for two years, Gerrit says. "I hardly treat pigs at all."
Adds Gerrit's father, Jake Kraayenbrink: "We will be facing more and more that we can't use medications," noting that they "are almost antibiotic-free" in the sow barn and use no antibiotics in the nursery. Currently, 16-year old Jacob is running the weaner barn. Only one pig died in the last group of about 1,400.
It takes at least a year to get batch farrowing to work, says Jake. The sows need to be synchronized at first to get them into tight breeding groups. Dr. Pelland acknowledges that the transition period can be challenging and says use of Regumate, a synthetic hormone product that suppresses estrus, is necessary at first, but is used sparingly later.
The 37-day schedule for the Kraayenbrinks is precise. There's room for one day's grace in each cycle, so in 2014 weaning scheduled for Christmas Day was delayed to Boxing Day. When initiating batch farrowing, the Kraayenbrinks were in the advantageous position of moving sows to another barn. So they had lots of room in the two barns to make that transition, holding some sows back from breeding so that they would be synchronized with a group.
One challenge is that for sows that repeat-breed, there are fewer options to put them into a group, Pelland says. "You could create a greater non-productive sow days" number.
Extra labour needed
The other challenge is labour needed at farrowing. The Kraayenbrinks hire extra labour, family and neighbours, in the barn at night during farrowing. Recently, they farrowed one batch in the spring without night labour and will track pigs through the system to see if there is a difference in numbers of hogs marketed. Gerrit's initial impression is that stillborn numbers are at least as good as when people were assisting with overnight birthing.
Weaning day in their operation is more onerous than in many strictly commercial operations. "We have purebreds, so it is more work," Gerrit says. "We aren't set up to chase them onto the truck. We move them in carts."
Breeding is done in four to five days. Jake says the big disadvantage is working the gilts into the system. "You only have a certain window for breeding."
Overbreeding – achieving a higher than expected conception rate – can be a challenge. There are 118 farrowing crates and the target is 118 to 120 females pregnant at once. "If we overbreed and get 130 pregnant, we may have to move five-day-old pigs and put them on milk replacer," says Gerrit. "We've only done that a few times." There was a switch to "post-cervical" breeding with a rod that goes further into a female's cervix. The born-alive percentage has jumped and the conception rate has gone up.
All pigs are vaccinated for Circovirus. Jake Kraayenbrink thinks that vaccination helps make pigs less susceptible to other diseases as well. The weaners must be watched carefully for the first week in the barn and much less after.
Rooms are empty for two days, long enough to wash down and dry them. "It's like repopulating every five weeks," says Jake. Notes Gerrit: "Everything is a lot more efficient when you can do a lot more of the same job at the same time."
Jake still looks to Denmark, where he says producers who don't wean 30 pigs per sow per year "are out of business." Kraayenbrink's farm is at 28 "which for Ontario is probably respectable, especially for purebreds."
The Kraayenbrinks learned a lot about batch farrowing from Deetman Farms east of Kenilworth. John Deetman had two years of experience batch farrowing sows in the Netherlands before the family came to Canada 10 years ago. He stresses that it is important to synchronize gilts properly when bringing them into the herd, otherwise farrowing occurs over too many days. Deetman Farms is a partnership, with sons Egbert and Gerrit recently brought into it.
John Deetman, his wife Gerrie and Egbert work primarily in the farrow-to-early-wean barns near Kenilworth, farrowing 580 sows and gilts. They deliver roughly 1,250 pigs at a time to a nearby Synergy weaner barn.
In a recent expansion, the Deetmans rented a barn near Elmira, producing pigs for Jones Feed Mill's antibiotic-free program. Gerrit is running this rented barn, batch-farrowing every five and a half weeks. Piglets there need to be 30 days of age when weaned and the system is straw-based. "The nice thing is that Jones offered us a fixed price. There are no ups and downs. It is up to us to get production up," John Deetman says. He has some concerns about crushing, but it's too early to have numbers for this operation.
Tight breeding window
At the home farm, the Deetmans wean piglets from 105 to 110 sows every four weeks. Piglets are shipped at an average of 21 days of age. There is another week left for cleaning rooms and moving pigs.
Breeding must take place in a four- or five-day window and farrowings will follow. The tighter the breeding window the better, Deetman says.
The solution is to treat the gilts with Regumate after their first heat, rather than before. "When we stop treatment, they come into heat" five days later. "I think a lot of problems come when you treat them too early."
Regumate is expensive, but it is important, he insists. He calls an estimated $33 cost to treat a sow "an investment." Returning sows are also treated with Regumate to synchronize them into another group.
The farrowing barn has 116 farrowing crates, which is more than needed, but the barn was set up for a longer weaning period for another customer.
Enhanced biosecurity is a major advantage of batch farrowing, Deetman says. A truck only comes onto the farm once a month to pick up pigs. That likely reduces the biggest of the biosecurity risks. Sows only have to be moved once a month, so there are time savings in setting up to move the pigs. John and Egbert estimate that 15 hours a month is saved compared to standard farrowing.
Struck by PRRS five years ago, the Deetmans did a major cleanup fast, without replacing the breeding stock. "It is hard to do that in continuous-flow barns," he says.
Currently they use Topig 20 genetics in the barn. When they made the switch, "production took off," John Deetmans says.
At farrowing, Gerrie works the barn during the day. John and Egbert take turns working in the barn at night until 4 a.m., when birthing generally stops. "You can save a lot of pigs that way," John says. For the four quarters ending June 1, total born averaged 14.28 per litter, with 13.18 born alive. The percentage of stillborns was 5.53. Pigs weaned per sow/year averaged 28.25, with a constant improvement from 27.39 in the first quarter to 29.65 in the last.
The change from two-week to four-week weaning was a major challenge, John Deetman says. "You have to pick a moment when you want to start your whole cycle. Going to four weeks, the first couple of weeks you put the weaned sows on Regumate so that they cycle into the new group. With the other group you can, if possible, hold off on weaning a little bit to bring them into line."
For a while the Deetmans weaned pigs at 28 days. Now they wean at 21 days to meet the needs of a different customer. "We also put return sows on Regumate."
The advantage of batch farrowing: "It's really efficient. You can focus on everything." And there is a lot less work.
If there is a disease outbreak, you can end the cycle. "You are always a week empty. The little ones are shedding the most virus. They are off the farm and they won't re-contaminate pens and re-infect sows."
But the biggest benefit may be more marketing opportunities, because some buyers want larger groups of weaners.
Revised goal
Richmar Farms is a family partnership with father Richard Learn, sons Graham and Adam near Norwich in Oxford County. Batch farrowing has been part of the program since two years after Graham came home from Ridgetown College in 2006, Adam quit his farm construction job and a new sow barn was built the same year.
Graham, 29, runs the 350 sow farrow-to-finish operation, while Adam handles the crops and father Richard fills in when necessary. There are 600 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat, and a feed mill that produces two tonnes of feed in 20-30 minutes – about 175 tonnes of feed a month. Another 600 acres custom-harvested for neighbours justifies the equipment.
Originally a 90-sow farrow-to-finish operation in a bank barn, the new sow barn was built for 350 sows and 1,500 weaner spaces. Before batch farrowing, the farm was selling about 150-175 weaner pigs a week. Batching resulted in uniform sized groups of 350-375 pigs every two weeks, which were easier to market. (There were also changes in genetics.) The Learns started finishing their own pigs in four different barns with 2,700 finishing spaces. There is almost two weeks of "down time" for washing, disinfecting and drying empty weaner rooms for biosecurity and PRRS elimination, and there's better use of labour during cropping season.
Sows are farrowed in a two-week cycle, 32 to a batch. There are 64 farrowing pens and eight weaner rooms with capacity for 185 pigs each. There are 280 gestation stalls and 10 pens.
The farrowing rate on the Learn farm is 90.6 per cent, with 13.5 pigs born per litter and 11.6 pigs weaned per sow.
Average weaning weight at 21 days of age is 7.1 kilograms. Sow retention parities one to three is 85.3 per cent and sow death loss is 1.4 per cent. Non-productive sow days are 34 – "pretty good" for a batch farrowing operation, Graham Learn says.
There were few farms batch farrowing eight years ago when the Learns started and Graham allows "we didn't get our groups tight enough." If he was starting over, he would breed extra gilts; it's easier to sell some animals than to have empty farrowing crates.
There's one full-time employee working with Graham in the barn, with Adam helping on busy days. "Neutering, processing and weaning are our three big days. Every second Thursday we wean. That gives us roughly a 21-day weaning. We breed for seven days and then we are off for seven days. And then we are back on."
Learn described his batch farrowing system at a swine conference in Ridgetown in February. At the same conference respected Minnesota swine veterinarian Tim Loula extolled the virtues of batch farrowing in small farms (he recommends it for all operations 1,000 sows or less ) for cleaning up PED and PRRS and said big systems are interested in batch farrowing as well for biosecurity reasons.
Are big American systems going to batch systems? "That would take a lot of labour in some of those big systems in one day. Maybe they have easier access than we do," Learn speculates. Deetman allows that perhaps a large system would have crews of specialized farrowing staff that would go from barn to barn when needed.
As for South West Vet's Pelland, she says some integrated systems in Ontario are interested in batching. She adds that batch farrowing isn't for every producer. In spite of the advantages in terms of efficiency because a barn operator is able to do more of each job and get it out of the way for that production cycle, some farmers like to do "a little bit of everything every day," she says. BP
