Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean that’s a good way to keep doing it. Eight years ago, the National Pork Board’s animal science committee took a hard look at mortality in all phases of production, realizing that 35% of pigs born in the U.S. never enter the human food chain.
“Besides being a welfare issue and a bad optic from a social license standpoint, it’s just a bad business model, too,” says Chris Hostetler, director of animal science at the National Pork Board.
This committee believed the best way to make a difference in the number of pigs going to market is a renewed focus on student training and real research that’s shifting how farmers raise pigs.
“We know pigs die for a variety of reasons – it could be health-related, management practices, genetic predisposition,” Hostetler says. “Because it’s a multi-factorial issue, it takes a lot of different subject matter expertise and coordination. It’s a big, heavy lift to do this research and train undergraduate and graduate students to do it in a coordinated, cooperative fashion.”
What is the Pork Industry Doing to Improve Pig Livability?
National Pork Board partnered with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to bring the Improving Pig Livability Project to life. They gathered a group of subject matter experts to focus efforts on improving pig livability in all phases of production while training graduate students, undergraduate students and veterinary students.
“There needs to be a generational shift,” Hostetler says. “These people will be decision makers for our industry down the road.”
Joel DeRouchey, a professor at Kansas State University, says the research efforts aim to generate new information for producers, validate current production practices or disprove practices that aren’t moving the needle.
From pelvic organ prolapse to individual sow care and from split suckle protocols to gruel feeding, DeRouchey says the studies are providing actionable results that producers can apply on farm immediately.
Producers appreciate the research taking place that they can’t do themselves, he adds.
“We’re able to do the majority of this research in a commercial setting,” DeRouchey says. “Then, all that information is shared for the greater swine industry, not only in the U.S., but around the world. We get positive feedback from not only swine producers, but those in allied industry who support swine producers, on how this information is all shared and not kept in a proprietary way.”
Collaborating for U.S. Pork Excellence
DeRouchey says this is fostering an atmosphere of selflessness – of people pulling together to move the industry forward. No single university research program can be everything to everybody, so this project allows universities to cross expertise to get more done.
“About $1.5 million in additional contributions to this effort tells me producers and industry collaborators are interested in getting these best management practices employed on farms, and that they’re willing to allow researchers onto their farms and have access to sows, pigs, data and information,” Hostetler says. “It speaks to the fact that they’re very supportive of the outcomes from the project.”
When it comes to partnering with commercial operations to do this research, DeRouchey says the universities provide the experimental design, a graduate student to collect the research and sometimes, an intern to assist.
“We need their commitment that their team in the barn will help do what’s needed to get that data collected correctly,” DeRouchey says. “Plus, an understanding that everything’s going to be published – there’s no proprietary information generated when we’re partnering together on these areas.”
He also says it’s key that the farm is passionate about that topic, so management and production staff are excited to get that information as well.
Hungry for Continuous Improvement
“Producers are hungry for this information,” DeRouchey says. “If we go back to 2015, we started to see increases in mortality rates in all phases of production. Until last year, that trend had been continuing to go up for about nine years now. Last year we started to see some slight decreases in some of the production areas. Hopefully we’re going to start bringing it back down on a consistent basis.”
Hostetler values producers’ mentality of continuous improvement and getting better every day.
“Producers are looking for better ways to do things that they have traditionally done,” Hostetler says. “There’s opportunity to get better every day. Producers recognize the value of adapting these best management practices or changes in management decisions in a timelier fashion to affect productivity on their farm.”
Since its inception, the program has trained more than 50 undergraduate and nearly 30 graduate students and provided nearly 20 undergraduate internships. Information is available at piglivability.org and through nearly 40 peer-reviewed publications, nearly 40 abstracts/presentations, more than 120 presentations at conferences, more than 30 factsheets (with two-third available in Spanish), two economic decision tools and 30 informational videos (with one-third available in Spanish).
What’s Next?
An industry advisory board made up of about 10 people across all different facets of the commercial industry, production systems, veterinarians, nutritionists, geneticists and more are continuing to advise and direct research topics.
“As we continue evolving this, it’s all about staying relevant,” DeRouchey says. “It’s continuing to get the message out from the information generated to provide value to pork producers.”
Where Can I Find More Information?
For more on the Improving Pig Livability Project and its findings, visit: piglivability.org.
Read More:
When ‘Negative’ Nurse Sows Become an Opportunity
Managing Large Litters: Can Sows Nurse More Pigs Than Teats?
