Nothing says “it’s fall” like pit pumping and doing everything possible to keep your pigs healthy as colder temperatures settle in.
“Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) does not look very good right now. I’m super sad to see the amount of PED that we have prior to a lot of pumping getting done,” Cara Haden, DVM, director of animal welfare at Pipestone, said during the Q3 State of the Pork Industry Report.
Don’t Underestimate the Danger of Manure
Haden can’t caution people enough to follow manure management guidelines and do everything possible to keep disease out of barns this season.
“Pretty much all of the nasty pathogens that we don’t want are shed in feces,” Haden says. “There’s been a variety of studies that have looked at different manure storage and different temperatures. The bottom line is, there is a certain amount of virus that can survive for several days, and possibly several weeks, even a month, depending on the situation. We need to look at every bit of manure that we see as porcine reproductive and respiratory (PRRS) positive, PED positive, Senecavirus A positive, because it’s very likely that it is.”
A recent study by Ana Paula Poeta Silva and Daniel Moraes, working with the principal investigators Daniel Linhares and Gustavo de Sousa e Silva of Iowa State University provides evidence that the processes associated with manure pumping and land application pose a risk for the introduction of PRRS into pig sites. Researchers also said there was plenty of PED virus RNA detected in pit samples from most herds visited despite the absence of clinical disease or PED virus in oral fluids. Read more here.
“Getting disease breaks around the time of pumping is about the worst time when you’ve got fresh shed going into the pit,” Haden says. “That manure is very likely going to have viable virus in it. We need to not drive through it and walk through it. Go around the block, avoid it, be aware of when it’s happening.”
Manage Heavier Weights in the Fall
Cooler temperatures and the availability of new crop corn often mean pigs grow faster. Randy Kuker, director of swine production for The Equity, says that’s been a common question on company production calls lately: How soon will we have new crop corn?
“We’ve got two separate feed mills and two different timelines,” he says. “I do a lot of the load projections for our customers. I bake those factors into my load projections, knowing that once I get new crop, I’m going to try to sell quicker so I don’t get too heavy.”
He says communication is key and vital. They saw a huge impact recently when temperatures dropped from 85-degree days to 70-degree days, along with pigs being fed the new crop corn.
“Even with all that said and all that planning, we still got behind,” Kuker says. “We didn’t get a lot of the loads that we were asking for, because everybody was asking for them. Three of the four plants that we send pigs to are all receiving pigs over 300 lb. We’re struggling to try to get the weights down and get the right number of pigs out.”
Some plants have recently started Saturday kills heading into the holiday season to alleviate those challenges, he says.
Avoid Transportation Loss
Transportation loss has a big impact on a farm’s bottom line and overall performance. During the summer, transport loss is about 0.25% for a closeout group, which is about 2.5 pigs per thousand, says Brad Eckberg, account executive at MTech Systems. During the summer, this can fluctuate a bit, maybe gain a 0.1%.
“As fall comes, this can change again. So, don’t forget about the transportation part, especially with feeder pigs, making sure those trucks are getting buttoned up for travel and the cold weather,” he says. “As weights fluctuate, we have to think about what we can do to minimize any transportation loss and find that sweet spot for marketing throughout the whole year.”
In addition to taking pigs in smaller groups to avoid transport loss, Kuker reminds people to take their time and make sure pigs have a clean, dry surface to walk on when loading bigger pigs.
“When you get a pig past 250 lb., all your costs are sunk,” he says. “You’ve got a lot of time and money into that pig. The last thing you want is for it to go down on the trailer. We try to mitigate this by doing audits, being with the team when they’re loading pigs and helping them out when needed to make sure the process goes smoothly.”
Create a Sense of Ownership Before It’s Too Late
Adam Annegers, sow production manager at JBS, says “ownership” can really help improve the health of a barn right now.
“The farms that I get to work with are in extremely high, dense areas,” Annegers says. “We can count finisher roofs from multiple of our sow farms. We’ve seen some really good success with overall sow production numbers. Our PSYs are definitely higher than what we could imagine. That’s taking buy-in and ownership from everybody on the farm. It really goes back to being consistent and executing at a high level.”
He challenges his teams to inspect what they are expecting in regard to biosecurity.
“If trucks coming to the farm look dirty, send them away,” he says. “If there’s something not right, don’t load the truck because we know some pigs come back and forth. If visitors or maintenance teams are coming to the farm, be with them when they’re bringing their tools and supplies in.”
Inspecting what you are expecting requires farms to take more ownership into every step of the biosecurity process. But when people do buy into it, Annegers says the result is a much higher level of execution.
“Biosecurity is just reducing the risk to your farm,” he adds. “The more we can reduce our risks and the more that we take ownership of what we can control, the better results we’re going to see.”
Watch or listen to their entire discussion that delves into the impact of management decisions, health concerns on the horizon, barn remodeling and building considerations, and more in the Farm Journal’s PORK State of the Pork Industry Report.
