Farm Journal’s Smart Farming Week is an annual week-long emphasis on innovation in agriculture. The goal is to encourage you to explore and prioritize the technology, tools and practices that will help you farm smarter. Innovation today ensures an efficient, productive and sustainable tomorrow.
Is the ability to focus on the farm a superpower? It might be. In today’s modern pork production systems, the amount of data available combined with the number of challenges coming from all directions makes the concept of focus easier said than done.
Brad Eckberg, business analyst at MetaFarms, Inc., spends a lot of time evaluating data, talking to producers and visiting pork production systems around the country. He believes the difference between systems that are performing well and those that are not comes down to focus — specifically in the dollars to dimes.
“Those companies that are exceeding have their foot on the gas pedal every single day, all the time. They are really locked into data,” Eckberg says.
It’s easy to get in the weeds of day-to-day pork production, which leaves little time to analyze on-farm data. But Eckberg says monitoring data on a frequent basis is key.
“You don’t know what you don’t measure,” he points out. “Producers need to be able to say, ‘Here is where we’re at, here is where we want to be as a goal for an improvement.’”
A Look Back at 2023
Looking at the MetaFarms numbers for 2023, Eckberg notes several areas of improvement throughout the pork industry, but also areas of opportunity. On a bright note, feed costs have gone down. Nursery mortality has also improved. In 2023, it averaged 3.99% as compared to 4.41% in 2022.
On the sow side, productivity continues to go up. The average in their database is 25.8 pigs weaned per mated female per year. In 2022, it was 25.6 pigs, which was unchanged from 2021 and up from 2020 at 25.1 pigs.
“The gold bar standard for sow farms would be pigs weaned per mated female per year, which looks at how efficient sows are at producing weaned pigs,” he explains. “The 2023 average continues to increase and will be the fourth year in a row it’s increased.”
Total born averages continue to increase, too. Eckberg says this can be attributed to genetic improvements. In 2023, the total born average was 15.3 pigs. In 2022, the industry was at 15.0 pigs as compared to 14.8 pigs in 2021 and 14.7 pigs in 2020.
A number that has flatlined across the database and could use improvement is prewean mortality. 2023 will likely close out about 14.4% compared to 14.3% in 2022, 14.1% in 2021, and 14.5% in 2020.
“Finishing mortality was iffy,” Eckberg says. “It hit an all-time high in 2022 at 5.31%. It was unchanged in 2023.””
Mortality Challenges
In 2023, grow-finish mortality reached an all-time high, around 7.61%, up from 6.87% in 2022, 6.79% in 2021 and 6.26% in 2020.
But there’s no question the most alarming statistic for the pork industry continues to be sow death loss.
“We are going to close out 2023 with an all-time high in sow death loss in our platform at 15.3%,” Eckberg says. “In 2022, it was 14.3%. This is one of the largest increases in our history.”
Chris Rademacher, associate director of the Pork Industry Center, believes it’s partly due to more movement toward open pen gestation and Proposition 12 compliant housing.
“Sows are socially hierarchal animals, and when mixed, will fight to establish social order. This may result in increased lameness and injuries requiring euthanization if they don’t respond to treatment,” he says. “We have not genetically selected sows that will thrive in an open pen environment, but as we make adjustments, we will benefit from those changes.”
A Gut Feeling Isn’t Enough
“Producers who are focused, paying attention and using data to make decisions are thriving despite uncontrollable circumstances,” Eckberg says.
Data alone can’t answer the hard questions, but it can provide insight.
“If you’re relying on your gut or your employee’s, how can you remember all that information to make the best decisions? We can’t put as much onus on one person to do that,” he adds.
He says that’s the advantage to having data at your fingertips.
“Workers are in the barn, with that sow, putting the data in,” Eckberg says. “It’s updated in reports, and they can access scheduled reports instantly.”
Pay Attention to These Key Metrics from Brad Eckberg
Cumulative Pigs Weaned. “Cumulative pigs weaned helps us answer these important questions: What is our breed target? Are we meeting breed targets? How are we tracking them? Each sow farm has a targeted number based on multiple factors. There can be harmful outcomes when this total is either short or long of the targeted goal.”
Stillborns. “Stillborns have a direct impact on piglets weaned. Farms should be tracking the number and percentage of stillborns daily. If you know more sows are coming up due to farrow, plan to have more staff to monitor farrowings and day one care. The best operations prioritize labor by identifying those fundamentals.”
Non-Productive Days. “Each day an animal is not productive costs the farm. Farms with high non-productive days often see animals that were not properly bred or pregnancy checked and found to be open as late as when that animal was due to farrow. This core metric is something every farm can improve with training.”
Sow Death Loss. “It’s important to know who, when and why. Who helps determine the status and parity of the animal at time of death. When is the animal dying? Is it at farrowing or mid- to late-gestation? The why is equally important. Without understanding why animals are dying, how do we know how to save that animal?”
Individual Sow and Piglet Treatments. “Track individual sow and piglet treatments. Understanding why an animal is sick and utilizing your veterinarian-driven standard operating procedures will have the best outcome for the animal. A simple yet powerful message to any caretaker should be to see every pig every day.”
Grow-Finish Mortality. “Monitoring death losses across your farms is an absolute must. It is important to not only know which sites are losing pigs and how many, but it is also important to understand why the losses are occurring. Are the losses coming from general-population pigs? Are those hospital-treated pigs?”
Water Usage Monitoring. “Did you know the first sign that a pig is sick is when it stops drinking? Monitoring daily water consumption and comparing it to the most current consumption can spur faster action by the caretaker. There are many sites with barn controllers that will not only collect the consumption but will alert about a possible issue.”
Marketing Full Value Pigs. “For producers who sell to a packer, the goal is to sell as many pigs possible at the right weight. Identifying the right pigs to sell is truly an art. Tools and predictive software models can help identify a pig’s weight and girth measurements as well as cumulative feed consumed per head.”
How to Reduce Wean-to-Finish Mortality
Brad Eckberg, business analyst at MetaFarms, Inc., says it comes down to focus and prioritization. Using his experience working as a service technician and analyzing data from over 11 million single-stocked wean-to-finish pigs in 4,000 groups last year, here are a few tips to reduce wean-to-finish mortality.
Start pigs out right. Is the barn clean? “It’s easy to get overlooked. Make sure you have a dry environment with no drafts, too; pigs are difficult,” Eckberg says. “If something’s not right, if they don’t have the right feed or the water cup is not cleaned out, they’re going to get sick.” The challenge is you can never make up that performance difference from an average daily gain perspective. Obviously, if a pig is not eating, it’s not growing. If it’s not eating and growing, it’s going the wrong way, he says.
Take advantage of technology to make decisions. Technology with smart controllers helps ensure proper ventilation, heat and water usage, to name a few. “You can tell 24 to 48 hours in advance before pigs are going to get sick if the water usage is down, but are we tracking it? And who’s tracking it?” Eckberg asks. From the grower to the caretaker to the site supervisor to the general manager, communication must be a priority. Next, solidify the standard operating procedures you have in case something comes up.
Take advantage of technology to make decisions. It’s simple, but seeing every pig every day is critical, Eckberg says. The caretaker is there every day to ensure that pig has proper feed, water, air and treatments. “It’s not just ‘seeing’ each pig, it’s about taking three to four seconds to be able to look for any issues,” he says. “Is there a joint issue? Are they favoring a leg? When do I treat a pig? When do I pull a pig?” It takes time to learn how to be observant. Spending time in the barns and really understanding what the pig needs is key.
Tips to Address Sow Death Loss
The latest MetaFarms reports show sow death loss in 2023 was at an all-time high at 15.3%. That’s up 1% from a year ago — a trend that continues to move in the wrong direction. Although there isn’t a magic bullet, experts say animal husbandry needs to be the No. 1 focus.
Identify troubled animals. Make sure staff are properly trained to identify troubled animals. In a recent National Pork Board and Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research survivability project (piglivability.org), researchers demonstrated the value of making sure someone flags at-risk sows daily during feeding time and ensuring they are properly treated, says Chris Rademacher, DVM, clinical professor and associate director of the Pork Industry Center. “This has shown a repeatable significant decrease in mortality when executed properly,” Rademacher adds. Science continues to affirm that improving animal husbandry improves animal performance and profitability. It’s challenging, however, when labor turns over frequently and farms struggle to fill positions.
Prioritize gilt development. Never forget the importance of gilts on the farm. Gilts are the foundation. Although that’s not an earth-shattering statement, Eckberg says how you handle your gilts is ultimately going to determine your long-term success on the sow farm. That means spending extra attention developing gilts will pay off in the end.
“For example, studies show capturing at least one heat, no-service on an animal will drastically improve your P-1 and lifetime performance,” he says. He recently looked at the low number of heat, no-service gilts entered into the MetaFarms database in 2021. Over 60% of the gilts entered did not have a heat, no-service. That’s about 250,000 gilts that did not have a recorded heat, no-service. “If you’re not capturing that information within your record-keeping platform, how do you really know?” Eckberg asks. “It’s by way of the Stone Age a little bit with pen and a piece of paper. Having that information at our fingertips by using a platform to track that information makes a difference.”
Editor’s Note: The numbers shared in this story are preliminary 2023 numbers. The 2023 MetaFarms database represents 1.1 million sows from 460 farms as well as 24 million nursery pigs started and about 11 million single-stocked wean-to-finish pigs in 4,000 groups. As data flows in, updated numbers will be released from MetaFarms. MetaFarms does not release information on its customers, and it follows strict benchmarking rules about what data is included in reports.
