Denmark sets 35 piglets per sow as a national target

Monday, December 3, 2012

Danish litter performance, world-class even now, is already showing improvements from a 14G trait program being tried on several demonstration farms

by NORMAN DUNN

The average sow production performance in Denmark is already world class, with leading producers well over the 30 pigs per sow annual production mark. Now, the Danish Pig Research Centre (PRC) has announced 35 piglets per sow as a national target, kicking-off with the 14G trait program which selects for the sow's genetic ability to produce and rear to weaning 14 healthy piglets per litter.

Selection for the 14G trait is ongoing, while the management side to this target is being tackled through demonstration farms backed by specialist advisors from the Danish Farrowing Facility Management Group. This group comprises 14 swine production advisors continually involved in the updating of the national manual, "Guidelines for Farrowing Facilities." Members have visited the demonstration farms every two months and developed individual strategies according to litter management problems.

The different strategies carried out to increase litter performance on the demo farms have so far resulted in a drop of almost three per cent in piglet mortality to weaning, although litter size on the farms has also increased over the program's two years – by 0.3 live piglets per farrowing.

Farm one recorded a sow production of 26.9 weaners per year before the program start. In this case, the advisors reckoned there was room for improvement in litter monitoring, including checking on colostrum access to the weakest litter members and cross-fostering where required. Farm two, where weaned per sow output had already reached an impressive 31.7 per year, had still more potential through improved gilt genetics and better management in the farrowing facility, according to the experts. More veterinary input was advised for the third demonstration farm, as well as an upgrading of insemination techniques.

Farm four within the program started with the lowest average weaner output at 25.7 per sow.  Here, average age of breeding herd seemed to be a problem because initial advice included culling of sows after sixth parity when performance was low!  Litter monitoring was also an aspect to be improved, as was service success with gilts, increased light intensity at service being advised.

Even after the first year, three of the farms showed significant improvements in weaned piglet numbers and overall weaners per sow per year increased by 1.9 for the participating farms. At the same time, the national average for this factor increased by "only" 0.4. The 14G project is to continue with emphasis on litter management and (a new angle) optimal feed composition for suckling sows.

A complementary program being run by the PRC in Denmark is LP5, aimed at maximizing living pigs in the litter at day 5. Gilts and sows are being selected according to best performance in this category.

Suckling performance and litter management are crucial in this aspect. Associated research on one commercial farm by the PRC indicates that lightweight male piglets from first and second parity sows are the most likely to die during suckling. Major reason: a low consumption of colostrum or milk. Post mortems on almost 300 piglets dead within the first 24 hours of life revealed 79 per cent had a low gut content of milk, or had consumed none at all. Even later (between day 2 and weaning) 55 per cent of dead piglets had much lower than normal milk/feed contents in gut.

News media likes loose-housing system, but performance suffers
One of the reasons for seeking "nature-near" piglet production systems is to boost welfare-based marketing to the pork-buying public in Europe, where such concepts are well received. The GELAS group suckling system involves conventional farrowing restraints up to a point, but then caters to natural behavioural patterns (and presumed consumer demand) by keeping sows and their litters in small loose-housed groups up to weaning.

Developed and tried out by the University of Kiel and Futterkamp Agricultural Research Centre in north Germany, the system features groups of six sows with a 13-square-metre communal free movement area available for sows and piglets outside the conventional pens. Results so far, though, include slightly higher piglet losses and lower average weaning weights.

The GELAS approach features 4.7 square-metre farrowing pens with crates. Sows are confined for three days before and one day after farrowing. Thereafter, they're free to reverse out of their respective crates, leave the pen and move about in the communal area. Feed and water are available only in the individual pens with ear transponder access for the respective sows. Piglets are restrained in their pens by a threshold barrier that can be stepped over by the sow.

Five days post-farrowing, the litter members also have the run of the complex. Weaning is at 26 days. Results over 124 GELAS farrowings were compared with performance in the research centre's conventional farrowing pen system (pen area 5.2 square metres).

Initial results have not been problem-free. The main downside factor so far is an average weaner weight of 7.6 kilograms compared with 8.1 kilograms for the conventionally suckled piglets. One reason: piglets roaming the free area tend to miss suckling sessions with their own sows and have difficulty getting a teat place when trying to suckle others.

Crushing deaths in the pens of the group suckling system are so far nearly three per cent higher. More significant is a higher loss of condition in the GELAS sows. Their feed consumption till now has been marginally more, though the extra movement possibilities mean they also expend more energy. But backfat thickness remains about the same for sows in both systems.

First-time farrowers in the GELAS system fared badly, maybe because one day confinement after farrowing didn't offer gilts enough time to establish a good bond with their litter. The researchers therefore don't recommend this system for gilts.

Otherwise, though, the jury's still out on whether the GELAS approach is commercially advisable. One definite advantage is that it has attracted a lot of attention from the conventional news media, thereby demonstrating to the public that the swine sector is actually looking at alternatives to farrowing cage confinement, a system getting an increasingly bad press in Europe.

Europe's high-cost pork production
Europe continues to be a very costly swine production area with an average 30 per cent more invested in buildings, hogs, feed and labour per carcass kilogram than in North America.
The latest available full-year results (2010) from the European Swine Production Working Group (InterPIG) calculates that the sector in Canada had costs of C$1.38 per kilogram while those in Europe started with France at the equivalent of $1.72 and soared upwards to just under C$2.53  per carcass kilogram in the Czech Republic.

The InterPIG experts include all costs entailed in pork production, from the gilt entering the herd to slaughter hog leaving the feeding unit. The results highlight that the main reasons for Europe's extra production costs start with buildings where investments can be doubled by planning procedure, environment and welfare requirement costs. Feed also remains more expensive in Western Europe and, of course, the small-scale production units in some European countries, Austria and the Czech Republic for example, still miss out on any economies of scale.

Even the superior physical performances in many European countries fail to produce a businesslike bottom line. InterPIG calculates that most countries in 2010 did not earn enough per kilogram of hog carcass to cover all costs and the latest InterPIG meeting in June 2012 warned that the situation will generally not be better when 2011 results are fully calculated.

Average feed costs alone in 2011 were 20 per cent higher than in 2010 – and these are higher again on average for the present year. For all European Union countries, average slaughterweight production costs in 2010 are put at C$1.97 and a prognosis for 2011 adds 2.9 cents to this.

Pistol makes possible one-hand hog weighing
One-hand weighing is the slogan for a new pistol that immediately assesses hog liveweight via 3-D photography and the appropriate analytical software. The developer is German agricultural engineering firm Hölschner + Leuschner whose aim is a system that will ensure accurate slaughter hog weighing while avoiding the usually high stress, time and labour inputs of  herding animals through conventional weighing systems.

The outcome is optiSCAN and the difference between this approach – which has just won the family firm a "EuroTier 2012" gold medal for innovation from the German Agricultural Society (DLG) – and other camera-based liveweight assessments is that optiSCAN is completely mobile. The lightweight pistol shows the operator when the range is right for an accurate weight estimation. Then all that's needed is a touch on the trigger button.

One of the greatest advantages, according to the gold medal competition judges, is that the animals no longer need to be driven to a specific point for weighing. "The operator now comes to the pigs with the weighing device, a situation with little labour, no stress for the hogs and all the accompanying problems of driving animals into an enclosed space."

The information collected by the pistol can be fed straight into a computer for managing feeding records, slaughter transport arrangements or simply for the production of graphs showing weight gain performance pen-by-pen. BP