Verkuyl Farms: where night-time farrowing pays off
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Last year, the sow barn of this Oxford County producer averaged 29.5 pigs weaned per mated female, using a night shift staffed with Guatemalan workers. In the first 11 weeks of 2014, that number stood at 30.87. But its owner is quick to point out that what works for him may not do so for others
by DON STONEMAN
The simple sheet of paper with Spanish subheads and several columns of numbers marked with a pencil tells a dramatic story of a night-time farrowing room success.
On one night earlier this year, in a barn at Verkuyl Farms Limited, 23 sows farrowed, 16 of them birthing more than 14 piglets. In all, according to the simple statistics on that paper, 370 piglets were born alive and there were only eight stillborn. (See page 12.)
"It backs up my theory that the night shift works," says Mark Verkuyl, barn manager in the Oxford County farm. Verkuyl manages a 1,100-sow barn and 4,000 weaner places with six employees near Hickson, north of Woodstock. He farms with his father, Tony, and a younger brother, Steve, who manages the finishing barn and 1,000 acres of farmland.
The brothers are the third generation on the farm, founded by their grandfather in 1963. Mark Verkuyl is clearly an innovator, adapting to the operation what he reads about or sees elsewhere. Chief among these innovations is implementing a night shift in the sow barn, three or four nights a week when farrowings are heaviest, to increase the survival rate of piglets born from highly prolific sows, and also using Hispanic workers.
Doug Richards, a provincial swine specialist, knows of no other Ontario producers who operate a night shift with hired labour in a sow barn, though Verkuyl's veterinarian, Dr. Laurent Jacod of Demeter Veterinary Services, allows that a substantially larger Puratone barn in Manitoba operates at night.
Andrew Fenton, Ontario business development manager for DNA Genetics, the breeding stock supplier to the Verkuyl farm, says a DNA owner in the United States operates a large system with night workers, but its smallest barn is several times larger than the Verkuyl operation.
Night working "doesn't make sense if you don't have enough sows," says Verkuyl, adding, "I don't know what size that is that makes sense" to run a night shift. He quickly points out that what works for him might not work for other farmers.
Fenton describes Verkuyl as a very analytical person "who isn't trying to impress neighbours with big numbers." His barn practices must be profitable or he wouldn't bother. Fenton and Richards both note that Verkuyl has repeatedly tested periods of barn operation with a night shift, compared them with results from using daytime workers only, and returned to scheduling night work in the farrowing room. Last year, Verkuyl Farms' sow barn averaged 29.5 pigs weaned per mated female. In the first 11 weeks of 2014, that number stood at 30.87.
The average percentage of stillborn pigs last year, operating the barn with a night shift, was 0.85. With daytime workers, the stillborn rate for the herd is about 1.5 per cent, a number Verkuyl thinks is about average in Ontario. "Thirty piglets is not new by any means," Verkuyl says. But how he gets those numbers speaks to a high level of management, adaptation to current times and use of new technology and tools.
Verkuyl has been using DNA genetics since 2000, aiming to maximize the number of pigs weaned. The night shift is an adaptation of the workforce to the natural tendencies of the pigs to farrow after hours.
"The natural instinct of an animal is to give birth when it's quiet," Verkuyl explains. Attempts to induce day farrowing were unsuccessful. "We tried three or four different approaches and none of them worked," he says, adding that "a lot of the stuff we have done in the barn, I heard or read about somewhere and adapted to our situation."
Verkuyl's modus operandi involves use of a workforce from Guatemala. He secured work permits for the Guatemalan workers via Service Canada by obtaining a positive Labour Market Opinion document (which shows there is no one available to do the required labour) and then working with Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) to connect with potential labourers elsewhere. There are six full-time workers on the farm. Typically, four are in the barn during daylight hours, one has the day off and another works at night.
During an hour-long noon interview with Better Pork, Verkuyl's always-present iPhone rang twice. Both times he had a brief conversation with a worker in Spanish. "I always recommend (to farmers who want to use offshore labour) to get started on Spanish early."
Under the offshore workers program, a worker can come to Canada for a total of four years in every eight, Verkuyl explains. Workers at Verkuyl Farms spend a year in Canada and then a year at home with their families. There is always the possibility that employer or employee may not want to renew the contract to work.
Sleeving sows
The farrowing room can be a busy place on a night shift. Typically, 15 or 20 sows are farrowing at once. Verkuyl explains that 90 per cent of sows are "sleeved" – physically helped to give birth.
Records of times of attendance of various sows are maintained so that all of the bases are covered.A fair degree of organization is required. Workers "have to know what each sow is doing," Verkuyl says. "That is the only way they can make a decision on whether to sleeve a sow. That's why we have the sheets where everything is written down."
Keeping piglets born at night alive is a challenge, bearing in mind that two-thirds of those sows bore 16 piglets or more. The management plan calls for all piglets to be warmed and dried after birthing before being returned to their mothers. Workers split-suckle large litters, with half of the piglets kept in a warm box while the others drink from their mother. The groups are reversed every two hours until 12 hours post-birthing.
Danish studies show that colostrum transfers maternal antibodies to the piglets. Science also shows that antibodies in the mother's milk will fall to 30 per cent of the levels at birthing 12 hours later.
After receiving colostrum, large litters are cross-fostered in a staggered fashion that allows for newer-born pigs to get access to lots of milk. There are two different systems used to create "udder space," Verkuyl explains.
In one system, a litter of big, 14 to 16-day-old pigs is removed from their mother and placed in a "piggy deck," a penning system located on a stand over the farrowing crates that allows freshly weaned bigger pigs to be creep-fed near their dams while smaller piglets get access to her milk. The piglets in the piggy deck are near their mother and "in theory" respond to her grunts when it is feeding time and go to the creep feeder.
In the meantime, their mother is suckling a litter of perhaps five-day-old pigs. In turn, the mother of the five-day-old pigs suckles the extra piglets from a very large litter after the piglets have had their 12 hours' worth of colostrum.
The challenge with this system is that there will be 10-day-old piglets in the same room as 20-day-old ones and extra management is required at weaning. An alternative system –and both are used at Verkuyl Farms – is to keep 14 sows in a 16-stall room with two stalls left vacant. The sows are moved from stall to stall while the babies remain, and then sows are moved into the vacant stalls and put with piglets in that room that are all the same age.
Verkuyl likes the second system better because all of the piglets in that room are approximately the same age and can be weaned at the same time. However, that management system ties up more crates and he wants to maximize throughput in the farrowing rooms. Sometimes smaller piglets or thinner piglets are put in litters and fostered onto a sow that is milking well.
A third solution to maximizing piglet survival and growth is a milk provision system. There are 45 sow crates linked to a milk system supplying baby pigs with a product called Sup-La-Milk. This additional feeding allows more pigs to stay with each sow and reduces the need for cross-fostering. The milk-feeding stalls are larger than the standard by an additional six square feet. Verkuyl's analysis shows that crushing is reduced by half a pig per litter in larger crates and one more pig is weaned per crate because of the milk system. On top of that, weaned pigs are 500 grams heavier than average. Verkuyl figures that the milking system pays for itself in a year.
Feed management crucial
Managing females for high production starts with properly feeding the gilts, Verkuyl says, and stringent feeding management continues throughout the system.
To prepare these females, feed management of breeding stock is crucial throughout the system.
Gilts are housed in an offsite developer barn and fed a low-density high-fibre diet so that they don't grow too fast. Gilts are vaccinated to the same health status as the herd and, by the time they come to the sow barn, they aren't shedding virus any more.
Gilts are heat-checked at 30 weeks of age, but aren't bred until they are at least 32 weeks old. And they are never treated to induce a heat. "We feel if they give us trouble now, they will always give us trouble," says Verkuyl.
Gilts failing to cycle naturally are culled. Ad libitum feeding is initiated as soon as they are in the sow barn, about 16 days after the first heat check.
Adequate feeding of highly prolific breeding stock at all stages of pregnancy is critical, Verkuyl maintains. In the first five weeks post-breeding, the adequacy of feeding helps determine the number of eggs that will be implanted and also the evenness of piglet size. At 13 weeks and thereon, feeding must be stepped up again, because fetal piglet size doubles in the last three weeks of pregnancy but, notes Verkuyl, smaller fetuses never catch up.
The farrowing rooms are cleaned, disinfected and thoroughly dried between batches of sows. Sows also get a thorough washing before they enter. Washing a pair of sows with warm water and disinfectant takes about 15 minutes. "There is no point in cleaning and disinfecting a room and then putting a dirty sow in there. It makes no sense," Verkuyl says.
An Aquacharge machine treats water and creates a homemade disinfectant. Verkuyl likes it because "it is natural."
The Ontario agriculture ministry's Doug Richards says not many producers are using these machines in their barns. They are distributed by Aquacharge Inc. near Dublin, Ont. The company's website says the machine makes a disinfectant containing hypochlorous acid.
The temperature in the farrowing room is set for 21 C to attract piglets (lower temperatures attract piglets to warm spots under heat lamps where they aren't crushed) and decreased to 18 C by day 10 to encourage sows' appetites and feed intake. The ad libitum feeder has a 3.5-inch intake tube to speed feed delivery.
Mistral is spread on the farrowing crate floor to dry the baby pigs. Likewise, potato starch is put down for the piglets to eat, and can be mixed 50-50 with the creep feed if stools are loose. The advice to add potato starch came from the farm's veterinarian. Potato starch enzymes feed the good bacteria in pigs' guts, weakening the unhealthy bacteria.
Verkuyl says the most important factor is the digestible lysine to energy ratio. High-producing sows require lysine for both fetus and milk production.
Post-weaning, sows also get a special diet recommended by Wallenstein Feeds' nutritionist Jay Squires. This is a stressful time for sows, Verkuyl says. The piglets are being taken away. The sow is moved to a new area "with new neighbours" and she has to reabsorb the milk she is producing. The sows are fed two to three times a day from a feed cart.
There are regular meetings with the barn employees. There is a list of jobs on the wall in the lunch room. Verkuyl stresses that communication is extremely important but even with language differences, the challenge of communication is not insurmountable. BP
