The swine industry uses data to make decisions that can ultimately improve productivity, minimize losses and identify areas of improvement, said Ayva Bohr, a first-year student in the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, during a session at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference.
The substantial amount of data collected on a farm every day usually includes reproductive data, sow and piglet performance information, and employee task tracking.
“Most producers use a production record management software but may only look at a small weekly summary of the data to make decisions. In some instances, certain pieces of data never make it out of the database and into a summary at all,” Bohr says. “This poses the question: What are we missing? How can this data be used to its full potential?”
Bohr says she pursued her research project to not only learn more about utilizing data and Excel herself, but also to educate others on how to better use the data farms already are collecting in the swine industry without having to collect any new data.
“This project outlined ways that we can easily integrate data from real-time swine management software exports to dig past what we see on smaller summary reports. Ideas of what we can look into, examples of exports, findings and Excel tutorials were included,” she says.
One of the most impactful findings from Bohr’s perspective was from a multiple farm system export, comparing metrics such as sow farrowing durations on stillborns, employee compliance for farrowing attendance and more.
“Exports like these can be beneficial for producers to evaluate the effectiveness of their set compliance thresholds, recognizing high risk sows early on, or possibly identifying underlying issues that weren’t apparent in a weekly report,” Bohr says.
Bohr was one of seven students competing for the 2024 Morrison Swine Innovator Prize.
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