Fill Your Nursery Site in Fewer Groups to Maximize Pig Exit Weight
Pork producers often fill nursery barns over a period of time – days, sometimes even weeks. Little research has been done on the influence of barn fill rate on a nursery pig’s exit weights.
Haley Schwecke, a former Kansas State University animal science student, shared the results of a recent study during the 2022 Allen D. Leman Swine Conference that was intent on understanding if there were any negative, positive, or neutral effects on filling these nursery sites in different fill groups.
Schwecke collected data from 20 nursery turns between 2017 to 2019 that included 37,539 nursery pigs from four sites located in central Minnesota. Days on feed ranged from 40 to 64 days and included a range of one to four groups entering/filling a facility with a spread of fill from one to eight days. She studied these variables across two statistical analyzed models.
Both models supported heavier exit weights of nursery pigs when two or fewer groups enter a facility, she explained.
“What we found in the significant fill group variable was a reduction of the nursery pig's exit weight by 3.5 lb. to 3.8 lb. respectively. Our rate of fill of our data was only a span of eight days, so if we can see a weight loss of that significance in a ‘short’ amount of fill rate, it is very daunting to visualize how much weight reduction could be possible when filling a nursery site in a longer period of time, or using more fill groups of weaned pigs to fill the nursery site,” Schwecke said.
Although it can be difficult to fill a nursery site in two or fewer fill groups, Schwecke said the research shows an advantage that could impact a producer’s bottom line.
“I realize this is sometimes difficult due to sow farm size, low availability of labor, etc.,” she said. “But I would encourage the producer to take serious consideration of the other significant factors that were presented in our results – days on feed, source and starting body weight of the weaned pigs had a large effect on the exit weight as well.”
Attempting to keep the pigs at a similar exit weight will lead to improved management when received at a finisher site, while maximizing revenue at market when those finished pigs are slaughtered at a more similar weight, Schwecke explained.
In addition to presenting her research findings during the Research Highlights portion of the conference, she also presented a poster throughout the week. Schwecke is currently a master’s student at the University of Minnesota studying swine infectious diseases, specifically Mycoplasma, through the College of Veterinary Medicine.
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