Behind the Lines - April 2015
Sunday, April 5, 2015
A grain farmer facing a bumper crop knows what he has to do. He acquires a grain buggy and more trucks and runs the dryer 24/7 to handle that rich harvest. Most years there is minimal loss if the crop is left in the field until a backup at the dryer or elevator is resolved. But purely biological systems in pork production, when the "bumper crop" is a plethora of newborns requiring immediate attention or are lost, offers a different challenge.
Powerful new genetics that result in more pigs per litter are comparable to that new hybrid in the cornfield, but dealing with the piglets is much more of a challenge when the task is to match teats on the sows to the number of mouths.
If producers let dust collect on Ontario Veterinary College researcher Cate Dewey's 2008 advice on how to save more baby pigs per litter by increasing more resources into the barn, they can be excused.
Dr. Dewey's study, funded by Ontario Pork and the Ontario agriculture ministry, was published when the industry was writhing on the prongs of low pig prices, high feed costs, trade disputes and disease and were struggling to survive. That supreme test has passed, Dewey's work is being revisited, and there is more piglet-saving research in the works, as explained in this issue's cover story, by Don Stoneman, starting on page 6.
On our back page, Ontario agriculture ministry veterinarian Tim Blackwell also writes our Second Look column this month where he asks how we in Ontario can match an average sow farm in Denmark which now weans 30 pigs per sow year.
Still on the subject of sow productivity, Norman Dunn's Eye on Europe column reveals a recent study showing that dominant boars sire the best mothers. Dunn also reports on a Danish Pig Research Centre study showing little difference in productivity between crates and loose housing for sows. His report begins on page 25. BP
ROBERT IRWIN