In 2023, Dustin Coleman was facing a dilemma familiar to many producers right now in the swine industry. A farmer in Middletown, Mo. — where he and his team operate a breed-to-wean facility with approximately 2,500 sows — he found that while his animals were performing well enough, he wanted to learn how he could improve their condition while possibly saving money.
A significant issue he confronted was how to keep sows at a good, consistent weight throughout breeding and farrowing. He was having trouble with underlines and teats since they weren’t as full as he thought they ought to be, to produce the piglets he wanted to sell. Another challenge was high feed prices — something to which a lot of producers can relate.
My work with Coleman illustrates the value an outside advisor can bring to the farm, providing a fresh set of eyes and a specialized industry focus. I generally visit a producer’s operation to do a walk-through and observe the operations, feeding system, animals and environment, then provide recommendations for potential improvements. In this case, making some feed, and feeding, changes resulted in noticeable production gains.
Impressive Results
One of the first notes I provided to Coleman was that he was potentially overfeeding sows for no added production benefit. He instituted stricter weighing of feeders instead of sometimes just estimating the volume of feed, to ensure he and his team were delivering the proper amount per animal based on body condition scoring. This resulted in some cost savings by conserving feed.
Another recommendation I made was based on thinner sows and conception issues. When he would try to breed back these animals soon after weaning, some would have difficulty staying bred. We determined that if he kept the thinner sows on feed a bit longer and let them bulk up some more before breeding back, this improved conception — in fact, after he changed his feed formulation about a year ago, he began seeing an increase of about 3 percent in conception rates.
One of the changes I recommended in altering the formulation of the feed Coleman was providing his sows was to increase the additive of lysine by a small amount, less than 0.5 percent. Lysine is an essential amino acid for growth and performance, but occurs naturally only in relatively low quantities in the raw materials commonly used in the manufacture of swine feed.
While there was nothing incorrect in his previous feed formulation, as it did what was required in providing the sows adequate nutrition, the aim of my recommendations is to pull at least a little more robust performance from each animal that will result in a cumulative return on investment for the producer. The change in formulation did result in some cost savings for Coleman on additive ingredients (base feed such as corn, of course, doesn’t come down in price per bushel just because a producer reformulates their ration) — but his gains at market time have been much more significant.
After the formulation change, the sows’ udder quality improved, becoming fuller and showing much more definition, and udder edema went down through his herd. Over the last year, Coleman has also seen an increase in live births, averaging one more pig per two litters, and a bump in wean weights of an average 0.8 pound per piglet. This has allowed him to deliver better-quality, larger pigs to his buyers.
Perhaps the most significant result showed itself a month or two after we instituted the feed formulation change. His farm was hit with a porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) viral break, but despite the potential health challenges it could have presented for the herd, the sows still exhibited improved performance compared to their previous diet and piglets were surviving at a strong rate through the ordeal.
An Advocate in Change
One understandable worry this producer had in making a change to his feed formulation was that some or all the sows’ feed intake might dip, since changing any animal’s diet sometimes has that effect. Fortunately, the sows stayed at a steady intake level on average of about 28-32 pounds per day through the farrowing phase.
Another concern involved communicating effectively with feed mill personnel and switching his additive ingredients supplier since Coleman was already busy enough running the farm and not extensively experienced in negotiating feed formulations. Part of my task as an outside advisor is to try to smooth such transitions, so I worked with the mill to ensure the ingredients and feed quality met his standards.
Additionally, my role is to focus on recommending the best actions and products for a swine producer, which means I don’t endorse any particular products but instead, evaluate what is on the market for each individual situation based on performance and value. My goal is to provide information based on my experience and nutrition knowledge, with the producer electing to act on that data or not.
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