Sows

Is PRRS Air Filtration Worth the Cost? New 16-Year Study Results

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:45:28 GMT

New, highly virulent strains of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) are popping up around the country, proving that even “isolated” areas are no longer safe from aerosol transmission. A single PRRS break can cost a 5,000-head sow farm $5 million. Recent research proves filtration isn’t just a biosecurity measure; it’s a financial risk-management tool.

The Data: A 16-Year Deep Dive

A University of Minnesota Department of Veterinary Population Medicine study shows that farms with commercial air filtration systems experience a significantly lower risk of PRRS outbreaks compared to unfiltered operations:

● Negative pressure filtered farms: 51% lower risk of PRRSV outbreak.
● Positive pressure filtered farms: 58% lower risk of PRRSV outbreak.

“While air filtration methods combined with biosecurity measures have demonstrated effectiveness in preventing PRRSV introductions, this study is the first to comprehensively address the impact of different ventilation pressure types while controlling for regional pig density which is a main risk factor for disease occurrence,” says Dr. Cesar Corzo of the University of Minnesota.

This longitudinal study analyzed 16 years of data from 413 sow farms participating in the Morrison Swine Health Monitoring Project (MSHMP), representing more than 1.5 million sows. By accounting for herd size and the number of pigs within a 35-kilometer radius, the research provides the most accurate picture to date of how filtration stands up against regional disease pressure.

The Secret Weapon: How Filters Trap Viruses

Producers often mistake air filters for simple sieves, but capturing a virus requires more than just “small holes.” According to Rob Langenhorst, technical sales manager for AAF International, filters rely on four sophisticated physical principles:

Straining: Trapping particles larger than the space between fibers (dust, hair, insects).
Impaction: Heavy particles that can’t “make the turn” around a fiber and crash into it.
Interception: Medium particles that “brush” against a fiber and become snagged.
Diffusion: The zigzag movement of tiny particles (like viruses) that causes them to eventually bump into a fiber and stick.

The MERV (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value) rating tells how well these four forces work together. The swine industry is moving toward MERV 16 as the gold standard, Langenhorst says.

“MERV 14 gave us higher airflow but didn’t give us the protection,” he adds. “MERV 16 is the best of both worlds. They’re getting higher protection without compromising the airflow needed for ventilation.”

Making the Case to the Bank Manager

Paul Sennett, chief operating officer for AAF Americas, says the University of Minnesota Study provides the “missing link” for producers seeking capital for barn upgrades.

“The University of Minnesota report tells them the expense is sensible,” Sennett says. “However, the University of Minnesota also tells the bank manager that the investment is sensible. Now the producer has some evidence that they can take in front of the bank manager and say, ‘I need a couple of million dollars to do this, but here is the economic case.’ It’s a piece of science that demonstrates filtration is a financially sound investment to this situation.”

Fighting the ‘Wolves of Disease’ in the Nursery

As biosecurity tightens at the sow farm, the industry is shifting its focus to the nursery. Langenhorst notes a significant uptick in nursery filtration investment to protect the “clean” pigs coming out of filtered sow units.

“Maybe you spent X dollars filtering your sow farm and you have this beautiful, 21-day-old pig that’s nice and healthy,” he says. “You put it through the most strenuous day of its life at weaning, put it on a truck and take it to who knows where, commingle it with other pigs, and basically turn it out to the ‘wolves of disease.’”

Filtering the nursery protects the investment made at the sow farm. It allows the piglet’s immune system to strengthen before it moves on to the finishing barn, Langenhorst says.

The Human Element

Ultimately, cleaner air isn’t just about porcine health, it’s about the people in the barns.

“Productivity improves when things are cleaner,” Sennett says.

Beyond the pigs, filtered air supports the mental and physical health of the workforce. Preventing disease outbreaks and subsequent depopulation events is a key factor in employee retention and morale.

As new strains like PRRS 1-10-4 L1C.5.35 continue to strike previously “safe” areas in Ohio and Indiana , the mentality of the industry is shifting. “Producers who thought they were far enough away from the Midwest are realizing they aren’t,” Langenhorst concludes. “Now, they can’t build or remodel fast enough to get filtration in.”

Innovation and Health Take Center Stage at May and June Swine Conferences

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 13:10:29 GMT

From NC State’s Swine Innovation Forum in May to Iowa State’s back-to-back disease and production workshops in June, these events offer critical updates on research, technology and market trends for pork producers across the country.

MAY: NC State University Swine Innovation Forum
There’s still time to register for the 2026 Swine Innovation Forum on Tuesday, May 5 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Maxwell Center in Goldsboro, N.C.

The annual Swine Innovation Forum features presentations from keynote speakers from both the industry and academia, providing updates about innovations in management, research and technology within the swine industry.

From future-proofing swine sprayfield irrigation to pit management and indoor air quality impacts, attendees will hear about new research findings and production practices to improve your herd’s profitability. During the afternoon sessions, Lee Schulz of Ever.Ag will share a pork market economic outlook before Eric van Heugten shares about sow anemia and Mark Knauer unveils nutritional solutions to enhance sow livability.

JUNE: 2026 ISU McKean Swine Disease Conference
Save the date for the 2026 ISU McKean Swine Disease Conference on June 23-24, followed by Iowa Swine Day on June 25. This powerful lineup of events will kick off with a deep dive into enteric disease and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) management.

What and When:

Tuesday, June 23 (morning) – International Workshop on Enteric Diseases at the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine
Tuesday, June 23 (afternoon) – International PRRS Management Workshop ISU College of Veterinary Medicine
Wednesday, June 24 (whole day) – ISU McKean Swine Disease Conference (focus on swine health) at Gateway Hotel and Conference Center in Ames, Iowa
Thursday, June 25 (whole day) – Iowa Swine Day (focus on production) at the Scheman Building in Ames, Iowa

McKean Conference attendees are also invited to attend the Iowa State University Swine Networking Social, the welcome reception for the ISU Swine Day conference, at the Hansen Agricultural Student Learning Center on the evening of June 24. Although the McKean Conference is a separate conference, it will be held back-to-back with Iowa Swine Day again. Conference organizers say this allows attendees to participate in two exceptional conferences in Ames in one trip.

Conference program information will be finalized soon, with registration to follow. For more information on the event, please visit the conference website .

The PORK Podcast: Mark Knauer on Discipline, Sow Longevity, and Research

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 19:11:45 GMT

Mark Knauer is no stranger to the “grind culture.” As a Division I wrestler at Iowa State University during the legendary Cael Sanderson era, Knauer knew making it out onto the mat required a daily discipline that could only be achieved through doing hard, repetitive work until it’s perfect. Whether it was a 6 a.m. workout or a 3 a.m. trip to the North Carolina State University swine research farm, the discipline to be successful remains the same.

Walking On to a Legacy

After a heartbreaking loss in his high school state finals by one point, Knauer says he felt like he wasn’t done wrestling. After attending the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for a year, he transferred to Iowa State University with a goal of walking onto the wrestling team.

“Coach Bobby Douglas allowed me to walk on and probably thought I would keep or cull myself over that first semester,” Knauer says. “I remember one of my first practices was a morning practice at 6 a.m. The Iowa State indoor track was maybe 300 meters or something. I gave that first lap everything I had to come in first, but then the next laps after that, I did not come in first. I was just trying so hard to make an impression on the coach.”

His wrestling season went well from there. He walked onto the team and started three years, winning more matches than he lost. Although he admits wrestling was his main focus during his undergrad years, he developed a passion for his animal science classes which led to a graduate student assistantship with Kenneth Stalder at Iowa State for his master’s and Todd See at North Carolina State University for his Ph.D.

The Danger of “Barn Blindness”

Growing up on a 50-sow purebred, commercial-focused, farrow-to-finish operation in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Knauer grew up with a passion for agriculture, but his experience at Iowa State helped guide him specifically to the swine industry.

Early on in his career, he invented the sow caliper , a tool many people use today in the U.S. and across the world. The caliper has moderate correlations with muscle, fat and sow weight, Knauer explains. It measures the angle of a sow’s back. As a sow gets fatter, her top gets wider and more level, and that’s what the sow caliper measures.

Trusting your eyes to measure backfat visually is challenging, he adds.

“You can get barn blind,” Knauer points out. “It happens to the best of us. That’s the nice thing about the sow caliper – it helps you stay on track and takes the argument out of it.”

Knowing a sow’s body condition is critical for maximizing reproductive performance, ensuring herd longevity and reducing feed costs.

Sow Caliper: The Barn Referee

Like wrestling, producers win or lose based on points and performance.

“In wrestling, some people win the same way every time, and some people win different ways,” Knauer says. “Sometimes you get a reversal and win in a defensive match, or sometimes you get back points.”

Similarly, the sow caliper is a useful tool because there are different ways producers can use it to “win.”

“If somebody has a good livestock background, they may just have the sow caliper on hand to settle any arguments,” Knauer says. “If a consultant comes in and says, ‘Your sows are too fat or too thin,’ a good production manager can pull the caliper out and be like, ‘Well, according to this, they’re in ideal sow body condition.’ If you have young stock people who don’t have a lot of background in stockmanship and evaluation, they can use the sow caliper as a tool to get them dialed in for what an ideal sow looks like.”

Just like there are multiple ways to win a wrestling match, Knauer says there are multiple ways to use that sow caliper when it’s being implemented in the field. Ultimately, it’s about changing how pork producers manage the biology of the animal to ensure longevity and profitability.

Pig Livability: The Stakes are High

Unlike wrestling, working harder to help improve sow longevity isn’t enough these days. It requires working smarter through research into sow livability, piglet survival and the intersection of nutrition and health. Knauer says there are a few management levers that producers can pull to improve sow livability.

“Those gilts that have the best pre-weaning average daily gain, or best weaning weights when they are on the sow, are the gilts that go on to be the best when they grow up,” he says. “They grow up to be the best mothers.”

That’s challenging to identify, he says. It requires finding which gilts are the biggest at a very young age and then determining from a cost standpoint, what percentage you will keep.

“That early growth rate of that gilt in the very first 21 days of her life, really sets her up for her lifetime productivity,” he says. “Another piece of the puzzle that’s somewhat related is recent reports saying early puberty is favorable for longevity. That makes me feel good, because the data we ran 20 years ago said the same thing.”

From a management standpoint, that requires more hard questions.

“If you bring in your gilts, are you going to keep the first 80% that come into heat and ship the late ones because they’re not going to have as good a lifetime performance?” Knauer asks.

He’s starting new work now looking at more of these early predictors. Based on some of the work coming out of South Dakota State University on sow hemoglobin, Knauer is doing some of his own work on the impact of raising a gilt’s hemoglobin level at selection on subsequent lifetime retention.

Regaining No. 1 Status in the U.S.

Improving sow livability is not only a good idea from an economic and animal welfare standpoint, but it’s necessary to help the U.S. regain its status as the world’s lowest-cost producer, he says.

“If we look at cost of production for pork across the world, the U.S. is not ranked No. 1,” Knauer says. “Brazil is. It is in our best interest to close that gap in cost of production between Brazil.”

The U.S. is losing too many pigs along the way to disease and other challenges. He believes there are opportunities, especially as genotypes have advanced, to do better.

“On the sow side, we’ve made a lot of progress just in the last year or two, showing that nutritional interventions can help solve livability,” Knauer says. “Improving our pig livability across our system is going to help close the gap with Brazil, but to do that, we need research dollars behind this nutrition by health interaction piece.”

Researchers must listen to the data, the pigs and the producers to do this, he says.

“You learn when you’re listening,” he says. “That’s why it’s so important to move this industry forward.”

Discover more about Knauer’s experiences from the mats to the slats by watching “The PORK Podcast” on YouTube or by listening to it anywhere podcasts are found.

Sow Longevity: New Study Confirms Critical Management Triggers for Pelvic Organ Prolapse

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:48:20 GMT

Sow mortality continues to frustrate U.S. pig farmers. One of those key causes of sow mortality is pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Previous studies on purebred sows show that there is no silver bullet to prevent POP, but susceptibility can be reduced by genetic selection because it has a substantial heritability. A new study shows the same correlation exists among the crossbred (F1) commercial sows, but that’s not the only factor contributing to prolapse incidence.

A recent study led by Tricia Haefner, a master’s degree student at Iowa State University, evaluated genetic and non-genetic factors associated with susceptibility to vaginal/uterine POP in crossbred sows. She wanted to validate the non-genetic factors tested in the Iowa State University POP project led by Jason Ross , including the association of body condition score and perineal score measured during late gestation with POP in crossbred sows.

Data were collected on 3,983 crossbred sows during late gestation on two commercial farms in the Midwest during the summer of 2023. The data include:

Body condition score (1-5)
Caliper units (5-24)
Perineal Score (PS, 0=low risk; 1=moderate/high risk)
POP – defined as vaginal or uterine prolapse (0/1)

All sows were housed in group pens 35 days after breeding, except for a subset of sows at one farm, which were placed in groups immediately after weaning and managed according to California Proposition 12 regulations and moved into farrowing within 5 days prior to her due date.

The “Thin Sow” Problem

Using body condition score and the sow caliper tool, this study confirmed a “glaringly obvious” linear relationship between body condition score during late gestation and POP.

“Sows that are too thin during late gestation are at a substantially higher risk of prolapse,” says Jenelle Dunkelberger, a geneticist at Topigs Norsvin USA.

She says that’s an important message for the industry to hear right now.

“Late gestation is just a snapshot in time, but we should consider what her body condition at this time point might imply about her development prior to that point,” Dunkelberger says. “For instance, we need to be aware of, and perhaps even implement changes, regarding how she’s managed prior to late gestation to ensure that she is in the appropriate body condition going into farrowing, to maximize her success for longevity.”

Within parity groups, the data showed higher parity animals are also at a higher risk than gilts or Parity 1 sows.

Perineal Scoring as an Indicator

Researchers used a 1–3 scale developed by Iowa State University’s Jason Ross and former graduate student Zoe Kiefer to score the perineal region for swelling and redness. They found a high genetic correlation between perineal score and actual POP, indicating that these are, genetically, the same trait. More specifically, genetic predisposition for an unfavorable perineal score is strongly correlated with genetic predisposition for POP. Because perineal issues occur at a higher frequency (33%) than actual prolapse (2.4%), it can be considered a higher-resolution “indicator trait” for early identification of susceptibility to POP.

“POP is a binary trait – you either have a prolapse or not,” Dunkelberger explains. “Unless you have a high incidence rate, statistically, it’s tricky to analyze these types of traits. That’s why a trait like perineal score, which appears to have a higher incidence rate, may be an attractive indicator trait for POP.”

For this study, they did not see a large incidence of 3 scores, so they grouped together scores 2 and 3 and called them a moderate to high risk.

“We want to use this perineal score to try to develop an indicator of prolapse because you don’t get to see the incidence of it until it actually occurs,” Haefner says. “This helps identify it a little sooner so we can develop mitigation strategies.”

Prop 12 and Group Housing Stress

A significant finding showed that sows in Prop 12-compliant systems (weaned directly into groups) had a higher risk of POP and high perineal scores compared to sows kept in stalls for the first 35 days post-breeding.

“That was a little bit of a shock, but also we know that there’s a lot of stressors occurring around that time frame,” Haefner says, noting that there was limited data for this subset of animals. “It’s a critical time point of breeding and just getting off of lactation, wanting sows to recover their body condition. Even though those sows in that group were at this higher risk, we actually saw higher average body condition scores and caliper scores for them at late gestation.”

The sows were recovering, but Haefner says more research is needed to determine what’s different during that 35-day period as compared their non-Prop 12-compliant sows. She suspects hierarchy, including competition for feed, to be a key factor.

Still More Genetic Work to Do

After compiling this data, Haefner performed a genetic analysis on the tissue samples she collected.

“We were looking at perineal score and actual prolapse incidence,” Haefner says. “We were able to find moderate heritability for both of those traits, validating the heritability of POP in a commercial, crossbred population.”

Haefner says there’s still more that genetics can contribute to reducing the incidence of POP and improving perineal score.

“Perineal score and prolapse together being highly correlated means that we can utilize perineal score to also help mitigate against prolapse and select for perineal score alongside prolapse as well. Or, potentially, use perineal score in place of POP, to select for reduced incidence of POP,” she adds.

In other words, the same genes that control susceptibility to an undesirable perineal score are the same set of genes that control POP.

A Multi-factorial Approach is Needed

“Genetics can be part of the solution, and should be part of the solution,” Dunkelberger says. “But moderate heritability indicates that the majority of phenotypic variation in that trait is actually influenced by non-genetic factors. Therefore, you need to address both the genetic and non-genetic factors influencing POP to make a substantial reduction in the incidence rate of POP.”

Topigs Norsvin USA has been performing direct selection against susceptibility to POP since 2021. Dunkelberger says that should continue to reduce the genetic susceptibility to that trait, but effort should also be invested into looking at these non-genetic solutions as a way of complementing that approach.

“The lowest hanging fruit is body condition,” Dunkelberger says. “There are different ways to go about managing body condition and different things that can influence it. Having awareness of the relationship between body condition during late gestation and susceptibility to POP is important. I really believe that proper management of body condition will pay for itself in terms of sow retention.”

How to Keep Rotaviral Scours to a Minimum Among Piglets

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:11:50 GMT

Rotavirus may be common throughout the U.S. swine population, but piglet infections on a given farm doesn’t have to be inevitable. There are methods and tools to fight the virus.

Rotavirus-induced scours is complex, because presence of the virus alone isn’t enough to lead to clinical infection. The piglet most likely to experience severe illness — in the 2- to 7-days-of-age range — needs to also be susceptible to infection, through lack of immunity, environmental stressors, an overwhelming viral challenge to its still-developing immune system or a combination of these.

Tackling rotaviral challenges today is shifting away from simply treating an outbreak, to more aggressive preventive measures. Treatment has frequently consisted of antibiotics — and this doesn’t work on a virus. Moreover, unnecessary antimicrobials can actually wipe out beneficial bacteria in the piglet’s gut that help maintain its developing immune system and appetite.

Boosting Biosecurity

Done right, sanitation and hygiene are highly effective tools for keeping rotavirus at bay in the farrowing space. Ask yourself when cleaning between litters: Is the crate completely free of organic matter on which rotavirus (and other pathogens) can survive? Are you lifting dividers, getting into corners and under the crate where manure and other matter can build up? Also:

● Clean with hot water — heat helps denature rotavirus

● Use degreasters or detergents that also destroy biofilm buildup

● Rotate your disinfectants and use different classes of them, to discourage pathogenic resistance

● Whitewashing using an alkaline base that alters the pH of surfaces helps kill pathogens

Your goal is to make all farrowing surfaces hostile to rotavirus but safe for the sow and piglets. In addition, clean farrowing hallways and other high-traffic areas such as wean pig chutes before and after sows move through the farrowing room. Other measures to consider:

● Cover or change footwear when moving from hallways and other areas into the farrowing crate

● Change gloves between handling different litters

● If a litter is scouring, handle non-scouring litters first (and change gloves)

● It may not be necessary to ban cross-litter fostering on your farm, but it’s something to seriously consider if you want to do absolutely all you can to limit potential transmission — talk with your veterinarian

Keeping piglets warm, dry and fed also goes a long way toward discouraging infection. This might include drying agents, adjusting height and intensity of heat lamps and even administering an oral drench for moisture and electrolytes if necessary. Of course, the first focus for providing the piglet with nutrition should be on sow wellness — if she’s comfortable and eating and drinking well to produce plenty of milk, hungry piglets are far more likely to thrive.

Vaccination is King

Effectively fighting rotavirus infection, however, starts much closer to the piglet and the maternal antibodies it receives through colostrum and subsequent milk. In fact, the primary way to protect your piglets from rotaviral scours is through a healthy sow with pre-farrow vaccine. Although some producers prefer using feedback for sows, the resulting immunity usually only works in cycles and can still leave gaps for piglet scours — vaccine-induced immunity is more even and dependable.

Because there are different killed vaccines to immunize against rotavirus, especially if you are experiencing chronic scours in your litters or see a spike despite using a rigorous pre-farrow vaccine schedule, it’s important to conduct diagnostic tests for the viral strain responsible. Rotavirus consists of several species that can each mutate rapidly; this means you may need to change your vaccine or even have your veterinarian prescribe an autogenous one.

I recommend having a diagnostic sequence performed every 3-6 months even if you’re not seeing scours, since I believe it’s better to be proactive and prevent illness and mortalities rather than wait for clinical infection to land in your crate.

And to be really proactive, start boosting your sow’s immunity when she’s still a gilt. While acclimating her to the sow herd, expose her to rotavirus and vaccinate before she’s bred. This ensures the pre-farrow vaccination and/or feedback are not her first exposure — which can mean possible illness and diarrhea — and are instead just another layer to her immunity toward creating strong maternal antibodies.

Reflection = Good for ROI

In addition to diagnostics to isolate the specific rotaviral strain(s) on your farm, I advise regularly reviewing cleaning, handling and sow and piglet care practices in your barn.

One aid to doing this is to monitor metrics; in fact, you may already be collecting this data and can put it to work right away. Keep track of how many litters, and piglets in those litters, are showing scours, and which sows so you can note patterns. Other data to use are scours mortalities, of course, but also low wean weights as well as inconsistent growth among piglets in the same litter or of whole litters at wean time. If diagnostics show your vaccines are up-to-date for rotavirus present in your operation, go observe the people doing the work and be sure your protocols are working — and being followed.

So much of piglet health success rests on a farm’s staff sticking to successful processes, daily. If I’m visiting a farm that is having scours issues, I take time to observe workers handling the farrowing, piglets and sow care, as well as those washing and disinfecting, administering pre-farrow vaccines and more. The solution is sometimes as simple as a change to materials or retraining on correct procedure. Similarly, if you hire new or reassign someone to do a different job, it’s a good idea to check in when they begin to make sure they are trained and doing their task properly.

Our industry has a number of tools to wean healthy, productive piglets — but only if they’re effectively and consistently used. Invest wisely in sow immunity, track and measure outcomes for success and review diagnostics and biosecurity protocols regularly.

How the Pork Industry is Tackling Pig Livability Today

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:14:49 GMT

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 .

When ‘Negative’ Nurse Sows Become an Opportunity
Managing Large Litters: Can Sows Nurse More Pigs Than Teats?

No-Cost RFID Eartags for Swine are Now Available

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 19:22:28 GMT

Swine producers and state animal health officials can now order radio frequency identification (RFID) eartags at www.840swinetags.com —at no cost!

According to USDA Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the tags are shipped directly from Merck Animal Health to your premises with no middle steps, ultimately expediting getting tags into producers’ hands and pigs’ ears.

For producers, all you need to have to get your order going is a valid premises ID and your sow or show pig count. For state animal health officials, head to the website knowing the number of sows in your state. APHIS says that’s all it takes to get the order going.

What is the Swine Identification Initiative?
First announced in August 2025, this initiative—modeled after the successful no-cost RFID cattle tag program—aims to strengthen national swine disease traceability, APHIS explains.

“While traceability does not prevent disease, it significantly reduces the time needed to respond to outbreaks, helping to limit the number of affected farms and animals,” APHIS explains. “This, in turn, minimizes economic impacts on producers and their communities.”

In July 2025, APHIS awarded a contract to Merck Animal Health to supply up to $20 million in tags to sow and exhibition swine industry segments, over the next five years. Read more here.

APHIS notes that these RFID tags will need to be applied with a compatible tag applicator, which is not supplied through this program.

New Oral Fluid Guidelines Offer Cost-Effective Disease Monitoring for Group-Housed Sows

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:13:28 GMT

Collect oral fluid samples from group-housed sows by hanging two cotton ropes per pen and allowing 60 to 90 minutes of sampling time to yield best results, suggests a recent study funded by the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) and led by Jeff Zimmerman at Iowa State University.

As more breeding herds shift to housing sows in groups, the need for validating practical and cost-effective disease surveillance protocols in this population is greater than ever.

Oral fluid sampling has become a popular way to monitor herd health because it’s non-invasive, cost-effective and efficient. It’s also simple and safe for caretakers to collect, according to a recent nationwide survey on oral fluid sampling in U.S. swine farms published in Pathogens .

Zimmerman’s oral fluids sampling study in group-housed sows set out to determine practicality and best practices for the swine industry.

What Did the Sows’ Behavior Reveal?

Researchers conducted the study on a 6,500-head commercial breed-to-wean sow farm. Oral fluids were collected using two ropes per pen for four consecutive days across the pens. Sow behavior towards the ropes was characterized by individually marking a sub-set of animals and a 90-minute video observation was recorded, the study shows.

Results revealed oral fluids can be routinely collected from group-housed gestating sows using cotton ropes, a process used successfully in growing pig populations. In all groups and on all sampling days, the volume of oral fluid collected during the study was more than adequate to conduct diagnostic tests.

Larger Animals Need Longer Sampling Time

However, experts caution that sampling time in group-housed sows should be extended to 60 to 90 minutes to maximize participation, a longer duration than what is suggested for growing pigs.

The longer sampling time is needed for sows due to their larger size and the fact that fewer sows can access the ropes at any given time when compared to growing pigs, the experts say. The use of two ropes per pen provides adequate access while reducing competition across sows. By combining the two ropes from a single pen before sending them to the lab, you can reduce costs and only pay for one test per pen.

The researchers note that this study showed diagnostic targets, such as a gene, protein or antibody whose presence or absence is used to detect disease, in the pen environment are transferred into pen-based oral fluid samples. This confirms previous report findings in a study conducted by Tarasiuk with finishing pigs .

This explains why pathogens not shed via the mouth (for example, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, a highly contagious coronavirus that causes severe diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration in pigs) are consistently detected in oral fluids.

As pigs explore their surroundings, diagnostic targets in the pen environment are picked up; as a result, these targets are deposited in the oral fluid sample and detected by diagnostic testing.

Detecting emerging diseases and monitoring herd health in group-housed sows can be done with ease through oral fluid collection, the researchers say.

Visit the SHIC website to learn more.

Zinpro Launches "New Era in Predictive Sow Health and Performance" with Sow Excellence Index

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 18:37:41 GMT

Zinpro Corporation launched the Zinpro Sow Excellence Index on Nov. 11. Designed to prove a correlation between claw lesions and sow productivity, the index is based on a data-driven benchmarking system that allows producers to catch issues early before they impact pig performance, Zinpro says.

“Claw lesions are a silent problem with loud consequences,” Lucas Rodrigues, Zinpro discovery researcher, said in a release. “Our multivariate analysis revealed that sows with poor claw health such as heel overgrowth and white line lesions consistently underperform in farrowing metrics. The Zinpro Sow Excellence Index empowers producers to act earlier, not later.”

How does it work?

Zinpro developed the Sow Excellence Index utilizing data from more than 30,000 individual sow assessments across multiple countries and continents.

“Using the Lesion Index (L-Index), a standardized way to measure lesion severity and frequency, the Zinpro Sow Excellence Index establishes benchmarks that can be used to evaluate herd health and longevity,” the company said. “Swine producers worldwide can now benchmark their farms against a global dataset and receive customized L-Index reports through a Zinpro Feet First evaluation. The Zinpro Sow Excellence Index then reveals how claw health directly correlates with productivity, longevity and welfare, turning lesion scores into actionable insights for herd performance.”

It doesn’t take long to check for claw lesions. Zinpro said it takes less than a minute per sow and can be built into a routine check to assess sows during lactation. If lesions are identified, producers can quickly adjust nutrition, housing or management to limit lost performance.

When it comes to nutrition, physiologically the most important function is keeping an animal alive and nutrients are first portioned to the main organs, said Ton Kramer, Zinpro South America business manager .

“When we think about ligaments, skin, mucosa and the claws, they are not the most important organs to keep an animal alive, so in situations of stress, they will not receive the amount of nutrients needed to make them better quality,” he explained.

If the animal has good quality of claws, the animal is likely to be in good health. Not only will the animal will be able to walk well, get food and water easier and maintain life better. Reproduction will be better, too.

“If you consider the inflammation, pain and stress related with the claw lesions, the animal will not perform as well because the inflammation that is related with the lesions will change other hormones that affect reproduction,” Kramer says.

Act Early

The Zinpro Sow Excellence Index transforms claw lesion scoring from a diagnostic tool into a strategic production indicator, Kramer explained.

“It empowers producers and technicians to act early to benchmark production, allowing them to improve sow longevity and performance,” he said.

According to the company, the Zinpro Sow Excellence Index offers producers the following benefits:

Provides early warning before lameness hits to bolster herd health
Quantifies monitoring through advanced data analysis and supports better decision-making for swine production systems
Links predictive insights to lifetime productivity, enabling systems to quantify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter most
Strengthens welfare credibility and reinforces the Zinpro commitment to sustainability

“Now the global swine industry has a tool to help demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between claw health and reproductive performance under real world conditions,” Zinpro said. “Producers can benchmark against top-performing herds, prioritize claw health interventions and improve sow longevity and lifetime productivity.”

Read more:
From the Ground Up: How Claw Lesions Impact Sow Longevity

Caught in the Trough: Do Mitigants and Feedback Play Nice Together?

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 16:07:36 GMT

Feed is a recognized route for some swine disease to sneak into your operation. As viruses continue to persist in feed under standard storage conditions, the swine industry has adopted feed additives called mitigants to help reduce the viral load in feed. Another commonly used strategy is feedback, exposing replacement gilts and gestating sows to pathogens via oral ingestion of contaminated material.

Rachel Kontz, a veterinary medicine student at the University of Minnesota, wanted to better understand how these two common practices interact. She set out to evaluate the impact of feed mitigants on the efficacy of feedback at three distinct timepoints. Her goal? To determine if she could simulate pathogens expected to be encountered during various stages of production and help inform best practices for disease management and biosecurity.

“This study evaluated whether commercial feed mitigants impact the viability of pathogens used in oral feedback,” she said during the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. “Feed samples were collected from two sow farms, each using a different mitigant.”

The samples were then inoculated with either an E. coli vaccine (Edema Vac F18) or a PRRS modified live virus vaccine (Ingelvac PRRS MLV) to simulate feedback conditions. Samples were tested at three time points: 30 minutes, 2 hours and 12 hours to simulate on-farm mixing intervals. At each of those time points, Kontz assessed pathogen viability using culture methods for E. coli and PCR for PRRSV RNA detection.

A Potential Conflict

All E. coli-treated samples showed strong bacterial growth at all time points, regardless of the mitigant or farm source. All PRRS-treated feed samples tested negative via PCR and virus isolation at all time points.

“The key finding was that feed mitigants did not affect E. coli viability, meaning bacterial feedback likely remains effective in the presence of mitigants,” she says. “However, the PRRS virus was eliminated at all time points, suggesting the mitigants may inactivate viral agents used in feedback.”

This highlights a potential conflict, Kontz says. While mitigants enhance biosecurity by reducing viral transmission risk, they may also undermine the intended immune response from feedback.

She believes this research provides critical insight for swine producers who use both mitigants and feedback as part of their herd health protocols.

“Understanding that mitigants may interfere with feedback can help producers make more informed decisions and work with veterinarians to adjust protocols,” Kontz says. “Ultimately, this can lead to more effective disease management strategies that balance biosecurity with herd health.”

She was one of seven finalists for the Morrison Swine Innovator Prize recognized during the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. She presented her research findings during a session at the conference.

No More Excuses: It's Time to Go Back to the Basics for Sow Care

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:17:37 GMT

Today’s high production numbers may look great on a report, but they only pay off when piglets survive the first 24 hours. To further cater the sow with her increased needs and demands, we need to treat her like the high-performing athlete that she is, giving her and her litter individualized care and attention.

This means going back to the basics of farrowing and remastering them. Making sure that each pig born is warm, dry and full of milk is the foundation for a healthy pig, a seamless lactation period, and a continually productive sow.

No excuses.

It All Adds Up
One thing we absolutely need to talk more about when it comes to sow care is the critical importance of individualized day-one care during farrowing. It’s easy to get caught up in broad management protocols and SOPs and overlook the fact that each sow, each litter, and truly each piglet is unique. I am a firm believer that those first hours of a piglet’s life are where the foundation for success of the farm is truly built.

Lactation is one of the most demanding phases of a sow’s life. Her body is under tremendous stress as she transitions from giving birth to feeding a large, hungry litter. How she’s supported during this time directly impacts not only the health of her piglets, but also her own ability to stay healthy, maintain condition, and ultimately rebreed. If we neglect this phase, we compromise her lifetime productivity.

We have always said if we take good care of the sow, she will take good care of us.

For over 20 years I’ve specialized in 24-hour, hands-on, day-one care and I can say with full confidence that this focused attention is what sets the tone for everything that follows. Making sure that each piglet born is warm, dry, and full of milk has been the cornerstone of the work that we do in our farrowing houses.

Small things done early will add up to big results. You catch problems before they escalate and be able to adjust before it’s too late. You also build a system where pigs grow better, farms run smoother, and the whole experience becomes truly more enjoyable for everyone involved- people and pigs alike.

Ultimately sow care isn’t just about the numbers that you see on a report at the end of the day.

Erin Brenneman

Sow care is about being present, observant, and treating each sow like the asset she is. When you commit to individualized care, especially in lactation, you’re not only improving outcomes for piglets and sows, but you’re also laying the groundwork for a farm that runs with greater ease from a management standpoint. And I don’t think anyone will argue that healthy, happy pigs are simply a lot more fun to raise.

Accurate Teat Assessments Improve Herd Productivity

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 21:14:08 GMT

Breeding decisions are heavily influenced by stockperson visual evaluations of the underline, says Nikki Villalon, a veterinary student in Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. These subjective assessments determine piglet allocation and ultimately survival.

“It’s remarkable how litter sizes have increased over the past few decades, but with that growth comes a shift in the demand for available resources, particularly functional teats,” she said at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. “I wanted to investigate whether those pre-farrowing assessments accurately reflected functional teats, defined as those capable of producing colostrum, especially since there is limited research validating the accuracy of these visual evaluations.”

(Nikki Villalon)

Villalon set out to do two things: (1) to assess the accuracy of stockperson visual teat counts (“good” teats) compared to functional teats that produced colostrum at parturition, and (2) to observe the morphological characteristics of both functional and nonfunctional teats over time. She says teats that were blind or did not provide colostrum were considered non-functional while functional teats provided access to colostrum at parturition.

Prior to farrowing, stockpeople recorded the number of good teats for 22 sows. During parturition, Villalon identified functional teats using warm towel stimulation, a plastic cup for colostrum collection, and a paper mat for in pen assessments.

She recorded measurements of teat spacing (samer) and teat-to-parenchyma distance on Days 0 (pre-farrowing), 3, and 10 postpartum for morphological analysis. Sows were encouraged to lay down using positive reinforcements (apple sauce and a hand scrubber) to minimize stress and maximize measurement consistency, she says.

(Nikki Villalon)

“Milk letdown from the sow occurs for just 10 to 15 seconds every 50 minutes, which underscores how vital accurate teat access is,” Villalon says. “Every teat counts. If an unfunctional teat is mistakenly labeled as functional, it can result in the mortality or morbidity of up to two piglets. Conversely, labeling a functional teat as nonfunctional is a missed opportunity to foster an additional piglet.”

During the study, she found discrepancies between good and functional teat counts in 40% of the sows. Teats classified as nonfunctional at Day 0 failed to gain any measurable parenchymal volume over the 10-day period. Most morphological changes occurred between Day 0 and Day 3, particularly in teat-to-parenchyma distance.

“First parity sows showed more variation and greater parenchyma growth than multiparous sows, suggesting a less consistent udder development pattern,” she adds. “These findings highlight the value of integrating objective measures like colostrum flow checks and parenchyma growth tracking into farrowing protocols.”

(Nikki Villalon)

Although entering the pen to verify colostrum production may seem time-consuming or disruptive, Villalon says the study shows that this step can significantly impact piglet survival and sow utilization.

“A low-cost, disposable paper mat can make in-pen assessments cleaner, faster and more practical for the stockperson,” she says. “By improving the accuracy of teat assessments, producers can reduce fallback piglets, enhance piglet welfare, and improve overall herd productivity and labor efficiency.”

Villalon was one of seven finalists for the Morrison Swine Innovator Prize recognized during the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. She presented her research findings during a session at the conference.

Sow Mortality Decreases for First Time in 5 Years

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 18:10:36 GMT

For the first time in years, recently released MetaFarms data shows a decreasing trend in sow mortality. From a high of 14% in 2022, the 2024 data shows a decrease to 12.2%.

Still, disease or health continues to comprise 31% of all sow mortality causes, and lameness is a contributor at 17%. Challenges like disease, lameness or welfare are reasons why the industry is developing a National Swine Health Strategy . In collaboration with an advisory group, National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council are using producer feedback to inform the strategy’s development.

“Focusing on selection of gilts for structural soundness can help in reducing lameness issues in sows,” says Chris Hostetler, NPB director of animal science.

Pre-wean mortality was at a five-year high in 2024, at 16.4%, up from 13.7% in 2023 and 12.9% in 2020. Hostetler emphasizes pre-wean mortality is an area the industry can’t afford to lose focus on right now.

“Even the very best producers – the top 10% – saw an increase pre-wean mortality in 2024, so I think it’s important to not lose sight of that,” says Rachel Johnson, technical account and product support lead at MetaFarms, Inc. “But the good news was the pigs that made it to weaning performed very well last year, and the industry continues to get better. Mortality was down in nursery-to-finish and wean-to-finish categories in 2024 as compared to the previous years. That, combined with the pigs growing really well last year, means we are hopefully offsetting some of those early losses with good performance afterward.”

MetaFarms released the “ Production Analysis Summary for U.S. Pork Industry: 2020-2024 ” in partnership with NPB to help producers learn from each other through this benchmarking effort representing a dataset of 1.28 million females from 462 sow farms, more than 18.0 million nursery pigs, more than 18.2 million finish pigs and 10.3 million single-stocked wean-to-finish pigs from farms across the U.S.

Analytical analysis on percentile performance shows the differences among the best performing farms (top 10%), middle-of-the-road farms (50%) and the poor performing farms (bottom 10%). Each Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is ranked independently among the different percentiles, meaning a farm can be in the top 10% in one KPI but in the bottom 10% in another.

Mortality Takeaways

Hostetler says one of the biggest things that stood out to him while reviewing the report was how the bottom 10% of producers affect the average and overall industry mortality.

“If we could figure out how to address the issues the bottom 10% of our production is being affected by, it would be a situation where a rising tide lifts all ships,” Hostetler says. “We could make some progress in terms of overall mortality for all phases of our production.”

He’s also quick to point out how the top 10% and average has been a sideways affair in this data set. Mortality in all phases of production for the top 10% moved sideways.

“The data has not had that upward and to-the-right curve that we’ve experienced as an industry as a whole,” he says. “That tells me our top 10% is doing a really good job in terms of mortality and in all phases of production.”

He also notes if a farm has a mortality that exceeds 6%, you’ll likely see the farm also has a very poor average daily gain, a very high number of days on feed and a very poor feed efficiency.

“Mortality affects more than throughput of animals. It underpins other key productivity indicators that, in turn, affect profitability,” he says. “It has a substantial impact on sustainability, for example. If we have a poor feed efficiency, that requires more feed to be provided to the animals, which increases our carbon intensity and environmental footprint that’s associated with growing that feed.”

Steady Sow Improvements

Today’s sow is incredibly productive, Johnson explains. Data shows continued steady improvements in total born and live born.

In 2024, the industry hit some five-year highs for average born alive at 14.28 pigs, up from 13.49 in 2020, Johnson says. Pigs weaned per sow farrowed was 11.92 pigs, up from 11.34 in 2020.

“With the percent of stillborn pigs, it looks like we’re making progress, and that probably comes back to being able to assist sows during farrowing,” Hostetler says. “A larger percentage of farms are beginning to hire dedicated farrowing room staff who are involved with obstetrics or assisting sows during the birthing process. That is a win for sure.”

Pigs weaned per mated female per year (PWMFY) was at 27.27 in 2024, as compared to 25.42 in 2020.

Improving Pig Livability

Over the last three years, NPB has asked MetaFarms to look at this data through a mortality lens, because they have been working in the area of improving pig livability, Hostetler says. In 2019, NPB funded a consortium to work in this space. One of the outcomes is a pig livability conference that will take place in Omaha on November 5 and 6. https://piglivability.org/2025-conference

“Having MetaFarms look at the production statistics through a mortality lens has been an important and key piece of that effort,” Hostetler says.

The opportunity to participate in peer groups has also been very eye-opening, Johnson adds.

“If we’re truly honest and willing to take a look at things – warts and all – everybody at the table has something to learn from each other,” she says.

Hostetler appreciates how lenders, college instructors, high school ag teachers, nutritionists, geneticists and more are digging into these reports every year.

“I think it’s one of the best things that we do bang-for-the buck for our industry,” he says. “The return on this relatively small investment has the opportunity to inform decisions that are made on the pig farm every single day. For me, that’s a big win for our pork producers to have this as a resource to inform decisions.”

Read more about post-weaning performance here.

Read the whole report here.

Help Piglets Thrive: High-Dose Oxytocin Allows Sows to Pass on Greater Immunity

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 15:54:20 GMT

Colostrum can be the difference between life and death for a piglet. As litter size increases, colostrum intake becomes even more critical, says Bryn Anderson, a veterinary student at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.

“Passive transfer of immunity is one of the most critical determinants of piglet survival and early growth, yet it remains highly variable in commercial systems,” she explained at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. “Piglets rely entirely on colostrum for immunoglobulins, but successful intake depends on factors like sow physiology, litter size and piglet vigor.”

She says this variability means that a proportion of piglets consistently fall short of adequate immune protection.

“There has been growing interest in whether management interventions—such as administering oxytocin—could stimulate more efficient colostrum release in the immediate postpartum period,” Anderson says.

“The idea is that oxytocin may help keep mammary tight junctions open longer after farrowing, extending the colostrum phase and allowing more immunoglobulins to pass into milk for piglets to absorb.”

Bryn Anderson

She set out to evaluate whether giving a higher dose of oxytocin would improve both colostrum quality and piglet immunoglobulin transfer, since even modest improvements could have meaningful impacts to any size of pork production.

Does Oxytocin Help?

In a systematic, controlled field trial at a commercial sow farm, Anderson enrolled 96 sows in her study and randomly assigned them to either receive a high dose of oxytocin 12–20 hours after farrowing or serve as untreated controls.

For each sow, colostrum samples were collected at approximately one hour and approximately four hours post-oxytocin treatment to measure quality using a Brix refractometer. From each litter, piglets were blood sampled at approximately four hours post-oxytocin treatment, and serum Brix values were recorded to assess adequacy of passive transfer. Piglets were weighed at birth and again at 24 hours to monitor growth. Colostrum intake was estimated using established intake equations based on weight gain, time after birth, and sow colostrum production dynamics.

“This design allowed us to capture both the sow-side effect (colostrum quality) and the piglet-side outcome (serum Ig levels and intake), while controlling for natural variability in parity, litter size and birthweights,” she explains.

Even with a relatively small sample size, she discovered that piglets from oxytocin-treated sows had significantly higher average serum Brix values and a significantly greater proportion reached the passive transfer adequacy threshold compared to controls.

“This shows that oxytocin can meaningfully improve early passive transfer, which is a critical determinant of piglet health and survival,” Anderson says. “The fact that significance was detected with only 96 sows underscores the strength of the effect.”

She says this highlights a potential management tool to increase the proportion of piglets achieving adequate immunity within the critical first hours of life.

“For producers, improving early passive transfer can reduce pre-weaning mortality, lower disease treatment costs, and improve overall herd health.”

Bryn Anderson

“Because commercial systems handle thousands of piglets, even modest improvements in passive transfer rates can add up to substantial performance and economic gains,” Anderson adds. “The study also demonstrates that oxytocin can deliver a measurable benefit even under real-world variability, which is encouraging for practical on-farm application.”

Anderson was one of seven finalists for the Morrison Swine Innovator Prize recognized during the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. She presented her research findings during a session at the conference.

Researchers in this study include Anderson, Josh Ellingson and Alvaro Franco, both of AMVC Management Services in Audubon, Iowa.

Blue Goo and a Tube: Novel Feedback Delivery System Shows Promise for Sows in Group Housing

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 19:14:46 GMT

As more swine operations transition from individual gestation stalls to group housing systems, some production practices like feedback delivery have become more challenging. The concept of feedback, feeding infected deceased pigs and their manure back to breeding pigs, is one way to help strengthen the mother’s immunity so she can pass on protective antibodies to her piglets. A simple but effective method, feedback is necessary to help control E.coli or other scours in the farrowing house, Emma Zwart, a veterinary student at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, explained at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference.

“In individual stalls, it is easy to ensure each sow received controlled pathogen exposure to build immunity that protects their piglets,” Zwart says. “However, in group housing with electronic sow feeding systems (ESF), sows move freely and utilize only four stall spaces for food consumption throughout the entire day. While previous research showed ice blocks could work as delivery vehicles, they had limitations with durability and timing.”

Zwart recognized an opportunity to develop a reliable, welfare-conscious method using dedicated tube-feeding systems. She set out to evaluate a novel system for delivering feedback material to group-housed sows and hypothesized that the tube-feeding system would successfully achieve 50% sow exposure within two hours.

Pipestone served as Zwart’s host and sponsor for the summer through the Iowa State University Swine Veterinary Internship Program.

A Novel Approach
She tested this new delivery system on a farm that uses an electronic sow feeding system across eight different pens with an average size of 44.5 sows each. Each tube feeder was fixed to the side of the pen so that the person administering the feedback would not be required to step into the pen with the animals.

(Emma Zwart)

The feedback material consisted of fecal content from P0-P1 sows, intestinal content from piglets, water, a Reload pack, and Underline gel pack, Zwart says. The Reload pack was utilized as a visual aid to monitor exposure rates by counting sows with blue pigmentation on their snouts at 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, and 24 hours post-delivery.

In this study, sow exposure rates were 37% at 30 minutes, 47% at 60 minutes, 51% at 2 hours and 75% in 24 hours.

She also assessed animal welfare by scoring lesions before and after feedback administration to ensure the protocol didn’t compromise sow wellbeing.

“I demonstrated that this method doesn’t compromise animal welfare as the lesion scores showed no significant difference before and after feedback, indicating the system doesn’t increase aggressive behavior or competition among sows,” she adds.

Practical Solution
Zwart believes this research provides producers with a practical, welfare-conscious solution for implementing feedback programs in modern group housing systems.

“The tube-feeding method offers several advantages: maintained pathogen viability and the ability to achieve targeted exposure rates without compromising animal welfare,” she points out. “From an economic perspective, while the upfront cost is higher ($6.49/animal vs $0.52/animal current methods), the system potentially reduces workplace injury risks (average cost: $3,400) and provides more reliable immunity building for piglets.”

(Emma Zwart)

This is particularly valuable for operations transitioning to ESF systems or those seeking to improve their feedback protocols while meeting welfare regulations, Zwart says.

“The research demonstrates that producers don’t have to choose between effective disease management and animal welfare- they can achieve both,” she says.

Limitations and Opportunities
Zwart notes a few limitations in this study, including temperature and timing.

“I did this late July when it was warm out, and feedback was given at 11 a.m.,” she explains. “Both are time-confounding things when sows are maybe not the most active and willing to get up to go investigate something new in the pen. Additionally, another limitation was the subjectivity with lesion scores. I did all the lesion scoring with help of one other person, but that other person was different between the two times. There’s some subjectivity within that.”

Looking at future studies, Zwart says one thing to consider is desensitization.

“If we leave these in the pens 24/7, would the sows still be interested?” she says. “We don’t know because that was not part of this study. Additionally, longevity of equipment and seasonality are factors that could also be explored more.”

Zwart was one of seven finalists for the Morrison Swine Innovator Prize recognized during the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. She presented her research findings during a session at the conference.

Split Suckling Study Shows It’s Better to Invest Time Elsewhere to Improve Pig Livability

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 20:40:57 GMT

For decades, pork producers have used split suckling as a way to help all piglets in a newborn litter receive adequate colostrum intake. In general, it involves the short-term removal of a portion of the piglets from the sow so the remaining piglets have less competition for consumption of colostrum. Despite its widespread practice, little research exists to show whether it works or not.

A recent study at Kansas State University led by Mikayla Spinler set out to see if split suckling is beneficial for pre-weaning growth and if it helps prevent prewean mortality. Spinler set up this large commercial trial utilizing 22,800 piglets, comparing split suckling based on birth weight or split suckling based on birth order to a control treatment with no split suckling. She discovered no differences in pre-weaning or lifetime growth or mortality.

“It’s a tough situation because split suckling Is one of the things that feels like an intervention that it is really helping the pigs,” Spinler’s K-State colleague Abigail Jenkins, who now serves as director of nutrition for Tosh Farms in Henry, Tenn., explained during a session at the 2025 Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. “Logically, it makes sense why it would benefit the farm. But the research shows that the benefit isn’t there. When we think about the amount of time that we have to put into doing split suckling, you’re left with a big question: Is this worth it if the research doesn’t show a consistent benefit?”

Jenkins believes there are better ways that farm staff can invest time to improve piglet livability.

1. Pay attention to the sow pre-farrowing.
“Monitor feed and water intake, especially in gilts who often have issues finding the water and figuring out how to work feeders,” she says. “Make sure everybody is eating and drinking prior to farrowing. Getting sows up to stand twice a day and making sure that they don’t have any lameness issues going into farrowing can be beneficial.”

2. Fine-tune the farrowing process.
“We know that a sow that is assisted during farrowing ultimately has a shorter farrowing duration, and thus should give birth to less hypoxic pigs that reach the underline quicker and should ultimately have more colostrum consumption,” Jenkins says.

Use that time to dry the piglets because piglets can’t regulate their body temperature for about the first 3 to 5 days of their life. Caretakers can also do udder training as well. Helping piglets get latched onto the udder for the first time can be really helpful for increasing colostrum consumption, she says.

3. Invest in post-farrowing care.
“From a management perspective, I know people across the country are really hurting because of sow mortality,” Jenkins says. “There doesn’t seem to be a silver bullet, at least not one that we have found yet. However, I think that paying attention post-farrowing can help in some scenarios.”

She says that simple practices like taking the sow’s temperature at 24 hours post farrowing can tell the caretaker if the sow is dealing with a retained pig or mastitis, for example.

“This allows the caretaker to intervene quicker, get the sow on antibiotics and hopefully allow that sow to finish out that lactation and not become one of those mortalities,” Jenkins says. “Monitoring feed and water intake and getting that sow standing are both things that can help us keep the sow healthy, which ultimately will help increase her milk production and help piglets not only survive but thrive during lactation.”

The results of Spinler’s trial will be presented at the pig livability conference on Nov. 6. Learn more here.

When ‘Negative’ Nurse Sows Become an Opportunity

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 15:08:27 GMT

When hyperprolific sows produce more pigs than teats, a recent study shows there may be better ways to manage those large litters. Abigail Jenkins, director of nutrition for Tosh Farms in Henry, Tenn., completed a study while she was at Kansas State University comparing the impact of sows nursing pigs above, at and below functional teat count.

She discovered the optimal litter size relative to functional teat count depends on the performance measure of greatest interest. Sows nursing a litter size below functional teat count have lower pre-weaning mortality and sow body weight loss and greater pig weaning weights. However, as litter size increases relative to functional teat count, overall farm throughput improves by increasing pigs weaned per litter, litter weaning weight and pigs weaned/sow/year.

The Need for Nurse Sows
Jenkins took her project one step further after compiling the data. Using the average pigs born alive and the average functional teat count at this sow farm at the time this trial was conducted, she determined how many nurse sows would be needed to handle the extra pigs because the live born was greater than the functional teat count. If the farm loaded 250 sows at each of the four treatments, this is what she found:

If the sows were loaded in groups of 250, at one less pig than functional teat count, 24 nurse sows would be needed for the extra pigs. If the sows were loaded at functional teat count, seven nurse sows would be needed. If the sows were loaded at greater than functional teat count (plus one or plus two), it actually resulted in negative nurse sows needed.

“Intuitively, this doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Jenkins said at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. “The explanation behind that is those sows are ones that we have cleared off her litter and put her pigs onto other sows to get them up to either plus one or plus two. Then, we have these sows that have just farrowed that now have an open crate that we can utilize as tools in our farrowing rooms. These sows can be used as what I refer to as opportunity sows.”

What is an Opportunity Sow?
Opportunity sows take pigs that are small, less than 2 lb. She says the key is the pigs are small, but they must be viable. The opportunity sows used for this should be younger parity, but not gilts. They should be sows that have proven production history. They also need smaller sized teats so the smaller piglets can nurse easily.

Piglet baby pig 2 SB

(Sara Brown)

“The opportunity litters are going to be large — 15 or more pigs,” Jenkins says. “Essentially, this concentrates all your small pigs into a few litters, so you can have more in-depth care for these small pigs and less competition. We know that smaller pigs, especially those born less than 2 lb., if left in the crate, have a much higher chance of preweaning mortality. If we can focus them all into a few litters, give them less competition with those big pigs and give them more resources and more in-depth care, then hopefully we can raise more of those smaller pigs with less preweaning mortality, and get them up to a full-value pig at weaning.”

An Answer for Fall-Behind Litters
Another way to use these negative nurse sows, or opportunity sows, is in fall-behind litters – pigs that are removed from their initial litters because of failure to thrive or because they are not doing a good job nursing on their current sow.

“It’s important those pigs get removed early, whenever those signs are first being seen,” Jenkins says. “The earlier the intervention, the greater the chance that you can really make a difference, and the greater the chance that you wean a full-value pig.”

Although some people would use a traditional nurse sow for a fall-behind litter, she says the newly farrowed sows actually make an ideal sow for fall-behind litters for two reasons.

These sows are still going to be producing a little colostrum or they’re going to be producing transition milk — both of which are higher in fat and protein content. It allows you to get more nutrients into those fall-behind pigs.
Newly farrowed sows will allow the litters to nurse more frequently than a sow who has just weaned a litter of her own.

“When you combine having milk that is higher nutrient content and a sow that’s going to allow those pigs to nurse more frequently, your chances that those fall-behind pigs recoup faster is much better,” Jenkins says.

Managing Large Litters: Can Sows Nurse More Pigs Than Teats?

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 13:54:52 GMT

More is better until it’s not. In the past 20 years, live born per litter has increased by about four pigs for the average pork producer. Abigail Jenkins, director of nutrition for Tosh Farms in Henry, Tenn., says this may sound like a great thing at first. The problem is that even though more pigs are hitting the ground, functional teat count of the sow has not increased at the same rate as the change in live born.

(National Pork Board and the Pork Checkoff)

“For a long time, we’ve been taught that you load sows up to the same number of pigs as she has teats,” Jenkins explained at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference. “However, as productivity has improved, producers are being faced with the challenge of a hyperprolific sow who has more pigs than teats. What do we do with these additional pigs?”

Jenkins says there are few ways to handle extra pigs – artificial rearing, fostering to nurse sows (sows who have weaned a litter of their own and are pulled back into a room of newly farrowed pigs to support those extra piglets), or allowing the sow to nurse more pigs than teats. All of these options pose their own set of negative consequences on piglet livability.

“Artificial rearing isn’t always practical and comes with some drawbacks, so the most commonly used strategy for more pigs than teats is nurse sows,” Jenkins says.

With nurse sows, however, you can’t get additional colostrum into the piglets because the sow is producing mature milk at this point. The piglet’s chance of getting colostrum stops at cross fostering.

“We also have to consider the increased risk of disease transmission because we’re moving that sow, typically from a room of weaned pigs that may have some other diseases or illnesses, into a room of newborn pigs that are born severely immunocompromised,” Jenkins says.

It also requires open crates to move the nurse sows into, which means the producer has to decrease breeding targets to allow for space.

How Does This Affect Mom?
If producers let sows nurse more pigs than teats, how would it impact key performance indicators? How will that impact pre-weaning mortality? What about subsequent sow reproductive performance and litter weaning weight? During a project as a research assistant at Kansas State University, Jenkins set out to answer these questions using 1,005 sows and their litters in a commercial sow farm trial in the panhandle of Texas.

In this study, a protocol evaluated one less pig than functional teat count, the same number of pigs as functional teat count, one more pig than functional teat count, or two more pigs than functional teat count.

(Jennifer Shike)

She discovered that the optimal litter size relative to functional teat count depends on the performance measure of greatest interest. Sows nursing a litter size below functional teat count have lower pre-weaning mortality and sow body weight loss and greater pig weaning weights. However, as litter size increases relative to functional teat count, overall farm throughput improves by increasing pigs weaned per litter, litter weaning weight, and pigs weaned/sow/year.

“The sows did lose more body weight over lactation when we increased litter size relative to functional teat count,” Jenkins says. “In addition, they lost more backfat and they lost greater caliper units as we increased that litter size relative to functional teat count – that wasn’t a surprise to us. One of the things that was surprising was that while those sows did lose more body weight and more body condition as we increased litter size, the differences between sows loaded at one less pig than functional teat count to sows loaded at two more pigs at functional teat count was relatively small.”

Just taking sow body weight as an example, they saw about a 10-pound difference in change in body weight over lactation across the four treatments. In the grand scheme of things, she says it’s really not as big of a difference as they expected.

How Does Functional Teat Count Affect Pig Growth?
From a litter standpoint, the results showed an increase in combined removals and mortality as they increased the number of pigs nursing relative to teat count. But that increase happened at a diminishing rate, she explains. They still saw an increase in litter size at weaning as they increased the number of pigs nursing, even though there was an increase in removals and mortality.

From a litter weight perspective, the results showed an increase in litter weight at weaning as the number of pigs nursing increases. But, when you consider the average piglet body weight at weaning, there was a decrease in piglet body weight at weaning as the number of pigs nursing increased.

“That’s one of the things that we expected to see,” she says. “Because you have more competition at the underline, you would expect those pigs to gain less weight over lactation. But it’s important to grasp that across all four of our treatments, these sows, on average, were still weaning pigs that were greater than 13 pounds. Even though the plus two sows weaned a smaller piglet, they were still weaning a good size piglet.”

Jenkins was particularly interested in the proportion of the litter weaned in each body weight category. She was concerned about the smallest body weight groups and wanted to be sure they weren’t just weaning more small pigs.

“When we looked at those differences in the proportion of the litter that’s weaned in each body weight category, what we saw is that in our minus one sows, they did wean a higher proportion of pigs that were in the heaviest body weight group, pigs greater than 16 pounds,” she says. “But when you looked at the proportions of the sows at and above functional teat count, there really wasn’t any big differences in the proportion of the litter weaned in each body weight category. That tells us that we didn’t just increase the proportion of those small pigs, we kept the body weight distribution of the litters similar across our treatments.”

Subsequent Sow Performance
Some of the most important data collected was the subsequent sow performance. At the time this trial was conducted, there wasn’t much data available that looked at things like the percentage of sows that were bred by day 7, Jenkins points out.

“When we looked at those results, we didn’t see any significant differences in the percentage of sows bred by day 7 post wean or the subsequent farrowing rate,” she says.

They did see an increase in the subsequent live born of these sows. The sows that were nursing two more pigs than functional teat count on average had 1.2 more live born pigs in that next farrowing compared to the sows that were nursing at one less pig than functional teat count.

“I did have to show Dr. Tokach so he could double check, because we were both a little surprised by it,” Jenkins says. “As we increase the number of pigs nursing relative to functional teat count, this data would tell us that not only did we not hurt subsequent production, but actually some parameters show an improvement in subsequent sow performance and production when we increase the number of pigs nursing relative to teat count.”

One of the last things they did in this study was estimate the pigs weaned per sow per year, an important KPI for producers across the U.S.

“We estimate that there would be a difference of 3.5 pigs between our sows nursing at two more pigs than functional teat count and our sows nursing at one less pig than functional teat count,” Jenkins says. “That was a really large difference in pigs weaned per sow per year, and that has to do with that increase in litter size at weaning as we increase the number of pigs nursing.”

A video summary of functional teat count management can be found here.

Revolutionizing Sow Nutrition: Precision Feeding During Lactation

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 15:30:28 GMT

Does precision feeding sows during lactation pencil out? Mike Tokach, University Distinguished Professor and Extension specialist at Kansas State University, says that’s an important question for producers to consider when it comes to feeding sows.

“Getting nutrients into the sow to support milk production and reduce body weight loss during lactation is critical,” Tokach says. “However we can get nutrients in front of that sow and into the sow is critically important.”

Although some sows will eat more than they need during lactation, Tokach says that’s the minority today. For most producers, their focus is making sure they have fresh feed in front of the sows so they can eat whenever they want to maximize consumption.

“We don’t want to forget about the basics and making sure that we have the nutrients in front of the sow so that she can meet her requirements,” he says.

When it comes to precision feeding a sow, Tokach says it’s important to know how much the sow is eating, her level of milk production, how many pigs she is nursing, and approximately what the litter gained compared to previous groups on the farm.

Sow nursing

(National Pork Board and the Pork Checkoff)

“This allows the producer to know how much milk she’s producing per day based on her litter size, and that tells us the amino acids she needs,” he says. “And then, based on her level of feed intake, we can adjust what diet we need to get the right percentage lysine or the right percentage of each of the amino acids in the diet to be able to blend those together to meet her requirements.”

Precision Feeding Results
K-State has been studying the use of precision feeding during lactation for years. Mikayla Spinler, a graduate research assistant at K-State, has recently led two studies at the K-State Research Farm and a large field study at Brenneman Pork. Both the sites had Gestal feeding systems that allowed Spinler to conduct studies comparing various diets.

(Gestal Jyga Technologies)

In the first trial, Spinler used three different models. The first model included a single diet fed all the way through, like most farms feed today. The second model was based on exactly what the NRC says sows need. The third model fed the sows exactly like the European model, INRA, says sows need fed.

“Long story short, both the NRC model and INRA model underfed lysine to the sows by about 20%,” Tokach explains.

In the second study, Spinler used the NRC model and increased its target by 20%. With that approach, the sows had the same performance whether they had one single diet or the NRC model + 20% tailored to their individual needs.

In the third trial at Brenneman Pork, Spinler wanted to find out if she could achieve the same results with a large number of sows on a commercial swine farm. Tokach says she found the same thing as her second study.

“If you knew the number of piglets the sow was nursing and could target your amino acids to the litter size according to their previous feed intakes, we could achieve the same level of performance as sows that were fed one single diet,” he says. “However, this approach reduced the feed cost of the sow and reduced nutrient excretion.”

In short, they realized they could achieve the same performance with fewer nutrients because they were targeting exactly what the sow needs on a daily basis.

“Precision feeding allows you to reduce the feed cost and reduce nitrogen and phosphorus excretion because we’re not overfeeding the diet to the sows that don’t need it,” he says.

(Gestal Jyga Technologies)

Targeted Nutrition
In the trial that Spinler completed, the sows fed the individual diet that met the needs of all the sows, consumed about 80 grams of lysine per day. The precision fed sows consumed just over 60 grams of lysine per day.

“When you think about that difference and the fact that they had the same performance, the difference is basically wastage of nutrients,” he says. “That reduction in cost is one of the big advantages. For many producers, nitrogen excretion and phosphorus excretion are not as critical as it is for some of the European producers where nitrogen and phosphorus excretion limits the number of sows they can have on the land.”

He also notes that precision feeding allows producers to factor in the effect of parity. First parity sows eat about 20% less feed than an older parity sow. Although first parity sows produce a little less milk, he points out that it’s not that much less. Because of this, they need a higher nutrient-dense diet in most situations than an older parity sow for milk production.

“A first parity sow is still depositing a lot of protein,” Tokach says. “She’s still growing towards her mature body size and needs more amino acids for that protein deposition that she’s doing while she’s producing milk.”

Is It Worth the Cost?
The industry has experienced quite an evolution in how sows are fed, Tokach points out.

“Most of us grew up feeding sows by hand and we still have some farms that do that today,” he says. “Then we evolved into more simplified ways of automating sow feeding. A lot of farms still have those very simple methods today. Then it moved to systems where the sow could call for her own feed. Precision feeding now uses a computerized system that will provide a targeted amount of total feed that sows can be fed at any one time.”

Gilts in group housing by Gestal Jyga Technologies

(Gestal/Jyga Technologies)

Some of these electronic feeding systems can blend two diets together. As the sow progresses through lactation, these systems allow producers to use more of one diet and less of the other to match the curve to meet those amino acid requirements as they change each day during lactation. Tokach says these systems can be very complex and sophisticated, or very simple in terms of the curve set up for the sows.

Ultimately, producers evaluating new construction or planning renovations to lactation rooms should determine the new technology cost and the return-on-investment timeframe, he advises.

“Your savings on the feed cost has to pay for the equipment to be able to do this,” Tokach adds.

On-farm employees must be trained and develop needed skills of utilizing the lactation feeding technology equipment to fully capture the benefits of more accurate feeding of all females in the herd.

“We’re on the front side of the technology, even the companies that have equipment to allow you to blend diets today will tell you that they are working on simplifying the process,” he says. “Work with the equipment manufacturer to make sure they have a process that’s going to work for you on your operation in terms of being simple enough to operate it and adjust the diets. Right now, it takes nutritionist involvement to make those adjustments.”

In the future, he envisions a built-in system, where somebody will provide a curve that goes into that piece of equipment, and then producers will adjust it based on the litter size and the parity of the sow.

“We do have people using computerized equipment to limit the amount of feed that a sow can eat in any period in the day to try to reduce wastage,” Tokach says. “But when we talk about blending different diets through precision feeding, we need to continue to have advancements to make that work work on a daily basis at the farm level.”

Mom Needs Energy: How Enzymes Can Help Maximize High-Fiber Sow Diets

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 15:09:45 GMT

A dollar saved is a dollar earned or so the common adage goes. With so many uncontrollable costs in the swine industry, everyone is looking for ways to do more with less. The same holds true when it comes time to formulate sow diets.

“Swine nutritionists can often formulate less expensive diets when they use some high fiber co-products,” explains Hans H. Stein, a professor at the University of Illinois. “But the flip side is that sows don’t digest the fiber as well as they do starch from grain, and therefore they typically have a lower energy value from high-fiber ingredients like wheat middlings in the diets.”

Stein and his team recently set out to determine if adding an enzyme could help with the digestion of the fiber, allowing the sow to get more energy out of a high-fiber ingredient.

Two gestation and two lactation diets were formulated to meet estimated requirements for gestating and lactating sows. Within each state of production, a control diet containing corn, soybean meal, corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), wheat middlings and soybean hulls was formulated. An additional diet was formulated by adding the enzyme xylanase to the control diet. All diets were fed as mash diets during the two reproductive cycles.

One exception was that the lactation diet did not contain the DDGS, he says. They determined the digestibility in gestation and also in lactation and followed the same sows for two reproductive cycles to obtain a good data set.

“The overall results indicated that if we add xylanase, then we could actually increase digestibility of energy, both in gestation and in lactation,” Stein says. “The sows got more energy out of the diets when we used the enzyme, which was exactly what we had hypothesized.”

Do the Numbers Work Out?
As with any additive in a diet, he says it has to pencil out.

“We want to make sure that if you add something to the diet, that you also have a payback,” Stein explains. “In this case, there was a sufficient increase in energy digestibility that we could justify the cost of adding the enzyme.”

The data showed that adding xylanase to diets for gestating and lactating sows had no effects on sow body weight changes, number of pigs per litter, or birth weights of pigs during two consecutive reproductive cycles. Xylanase did not impact the immunoglobulin composition of colostrum and milk during the second cycle. However, in late gestation of the first cycle, xylanase increased the digestibility of dry matter, insoluble dietary fiber and total dietary fiber. In the second cycle, xylanase increased the digestibility of dry matter, gross energy and concentrations of digestible energy. It also increased the digestibility of dry matter, gross energy, insoluble dietary fiber and total dietary fiber, and concentrations of digestible energy in lactation in both cycles.

“This means there is an opportunity to include more fibrous ingredients in diets for lactating sows with the addition of xylanase,” he says.

Reduced Manure Output
Fecal matter was also measured, but Stein says it was not a focus of the study. However, researchers found that feeding xylanase reduced manure output, too.

“That’s where the increased energy came from -- the sow was simply able to convert some of that digestible fiber that otherwise went out in the feces into energy,” he says. “They were able to convert or ferment that and then absorb the energy from the fiber.”

The side benefit is that less manure is produced because there’s less fiber coming into the manure, he points out.

Stein believes the most important takeaway for producers is that they can get more energy out of high-fiber ingredients in diets if they use enzymes. In this case, xylanase helped increase energy digestibility.

“The sows will eat a little bit less feed because they get more energy out of the feed that they do eat,” he says.

This study, “Exogenous xylanase increases total tract digestibility of energy and fiber in diets for gestating and lactating sows, but does not influence reproductive performance of sows,” was first published in Animal Feed Science and Technology.

Protecting Sow Farms Starts at the Feed Mill

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:44:04 GMT

By Jake Koepke, senior feed mill supervisor for Pipestone Nutrition

When we think about biosecurity, most of us picture the practices happening right on the sow farm—shower-in, shower-out, Danish entry systems, boot changes, and visitor protocols. But the reality is that protecting sow herds begins long before anyone walks through the barn door. The feed mill, and the trucks that deliver your feed, can either serve as a strong first line of defense or as a major source of risk.

At Pipestone Nutrition, we audit 45 feed mills that supply Pipestone-managed sow farms twice each year. These audits focus not only on compliance but also on continuous improvement—because keeping pathogens out of sow herds starts with preventing them from entering through the feed supply chain.

The Biosecurity Pyramid: Putting Sow Herds First
Just like chores inside a barn start with the healthiest pigs, feed delivery follows the same idea. Trucks delivering to high-health sow farms are scheduled first, and they stay dedicated to those farms until they’ve been through a full wash, disinfect, and dry cycle. Trucks that go to lower-health or disease-positive sites can’t just swing back to a sow farm the next day. They need 12-24 hours of downtime after a deep clean to make sure pathogens don’t tag along.

For sow farms, this isn’t just good practice—it’s essential. A single mistake in feed sequencing can undo months or even years of herd health progress.

When Shortcuts Cost You
Imagine a gilt developer site placing an emergency feed order. In the rush to deliver, a truck that had just come from a PRRSv-positive site is used without the proper downtime. That short-term decision could have long-term consequences. PRRSv might be introduced to a previously healthy gilt site, putting replacement animals—and the sow farms relying on them—at risk.

The lesson is clear: even in emergencies, biosecurity rules can’t be skipped. Gilts are the foundation of the sow herd, and once health is compromised, it’s incredibly hard to get it back.

Clean Trucks, Healthy Herds
Feed trucks are the unseen visitors to sow farms every day, which makes them one of the biggest risks if not properly managed. Mills now follow strict cleaning routines:

Exterior washing and disinfecting weekly, or immediately after visiting a positive site, followed by at least 12 hours of downtime.
Interior sanitation of cabs every day—wiping down surfaces, washing floor mats, and disinfecting touch points.

These steps may sound small, but they make a huge difference in keeping PRRSv, PEDv, and influenza out of sow farms. Think of it as the same logic as cleaning between groups in the barn—except now it’s applied to the trucks that show up in your yard.

Proof It Works
This spring, a sow farm broke with PRRSv. The feed mill servicing that farm immediately dedicated trucks and trailers to the positive site and strictly enforced wash, disinfect, and dry protocols before those trucks returned to any other farm. The result? The virus was contained, and four neighboring sow farms stayed healthy. Thousands of sows were protected, saving countless piglets and significant dollars in lost production.

People Matter Too
Vehicles aren’t the only risk. Every driver, veterinarian, or nutritionist moving between sites plays a role in disease spread. That’s why many mills and farms are doubling down on personal biosecurity. Disposable booties, Danish entry systems, and dry disinfectant foot baths are now common tools to keep pathogens from riding in on someone’s shoes.

The South Dakota mill mentioned earlier added these steps for drivers—booties at every site and foot baths at entry points. Combined with the truck cleaning protocols, those extra precautions kept PRRSv from spreading beyond the initial break, protecting more than 70,000 sow farm spaces.

A Shared Responsibility
Sow farms cannot stand alone in biosecurity. Their health depends on feed mills, truck drivers, nutritionists, and veterinarians all executing with discipline. When sow herds are protected, the benefits cascade: healthier litters, stronger weaned pigs, and reduced disease pressure for downstream finishers.

Take-Home Messages for Sow Farms

Put sow herds first when planning feed delivery routes—use the biosecurity pyramid.
Keep trucks clean inside and out, with wash, disinfect, and dry cycles built into the routine.
Don’t overlook personal biosecurity—booties, benches, and foot baths matter.

For sow farms, the stakes are higher than anywhere else in the production chain. Feed mills that commit to rigorous biosecurity aren’t just protecting trucks or bins—they’re protecting the heart of the swine industry: the sow herd.

Stop the Patchwork: Proposition 12 Threatens American Agriculture

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 18:18:51 GMT

As a pork producer and CEO of a fifth-generation family farming operation in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and surrounding states, I understand what it means to live with business uncertainty. Weather. Diseases. Labor shortages. Our industry faces significant hurdles each day as we work to bring safe, accessible food to American tables. However, what I don’t accept is added uncertainty and threats to my farm coming from expensive and arbitrary production standards brought on by California Proposition 12 and similar laws.

Left unchecked, a patchwork of conflicting, Prop 12-style regulations around the country would also lead to even more consolidation of the industry, as pork producers are forced to constantly reconstruct their operations—or, even worse, close their doors forever. Moreover, producers who can afford to comply experience losses in productivity, and at the same time, they bear the costs of increasing their square footage. And when activists are again successful at persuading a state to adopt anything different than Prop 12’s housing requirements, the wholesale revision of farm practices and contracts will start all over again.

The House Agriculture Committee recently convened a hearing on Prop 12, and I had the opportunity to testify about why a patchwork of Prop 12-style laws are an existential threat to our livelihood. As the vice president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and a farmer with Prop 12-compliant barns, I stressed to the committee that my operation, even with our ability to produce for California’s retail market, is at risk if other states make additional, conflicting demands on producers.

Two bills that would bring immediate certainty to the industry have been introduced in Congress. The “Food Security and Farm Protection Act”—introduced by Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Roger Marshall (R-KS)—and Rep. Ashley Hinson’s (R-IA) “Save our Bacon Act” both seek to prohibit state or local government interference with commerce and agricultural practices outside their jurisdiction. Passing either of these bills on their own, or incorporating them into a “Farm Bill 2.0,” would protect producers from a potential 50-state patchwork of conflicting laws.

Regardless of the legislative approach Congress selects, bipartisan support remains key to getting a Prop 12 fix across the finish line. It is notable that both the committee chairman and ranking member voiced concerns regarding the impact of Prop 12 during the hearing. Additionally, the continued efforts by President Trump’s team, following those initiated by the Biden administration, demonstrates a sustained commitment from the White House, regardless of party in power, to provide market stability for pork producers.

Congress has the authority to pass legislation to fix a patchwork of state laws like Prop 12. NPPC will continue to work with members on both sides of the aisle to find a solution that creates certainty for producers by preventing additional states from moving the goal posts.

Pat Hord is an Ohio pork producer and serves as vice president of the National Pork Producers Council.

RFID Tags for Sows and Exhibition Swine Provided at No Cost Starting This Fall

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 18:35:45 GMT

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will provide no-cost RFID (radio frequency identification) eartags for swine beginning fall 2025. These tags will be available for sow and exhibition swine producers. Once available, producers and State animal health officials will be able to order tags on the Merck Animal Health website .

A $20-Million Contract
In July 2025, APHIS awarded a contract to Merck Animal Health to supply up to $20 million in tags to sow and exhibition swine industry segments, over the next five years.

“Modeled after the no-cost RFID cattle tag program, this effort will supply no-cost RFID tags to swine producers to boost national swine disease traceability, which is vital to supporting the safety and marketability of the U.S. swine herd,” USDA said in a release. “Although animal disease traceability does not prevent disease, an efficient and accurate traceability system reduces the response time involved in a disease investigation, limiting the number of farms and animals affected. This, in turn, reduces the economic impact on owners and affected communities.”

A Unique Distribution Model
This program offers a direct-from-manufacturer to swine premises distribution model. Merck will receive, process and ship orders directly to producers and state animal health officials, removing APHIS as intermediaries and expediting getting tags into producers’ hands and pigs’ ears, USDA explains.

Producers must have a valid premises identification number, provide shipping and contact information, and provide the number of sows onsite (for commercial sow farms) or the number of show pigs on the premises (for exhibition swine) to order these tags. State animal health officials may also order no-cost RFID tags based on the number of sows in their state.

USDA notes that these RFID tags will need to be applied with a compatible tag applicator, which is not supplied through this program.

Click here for more information about this program .

The Cornerstone of Modern Agriculture: Today’s Sow is Changing Everything

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 16:22:15 GMT

She’s resilient under pressure. She’s prolific. She’s efficient. Today’s sow is pretty incredible and arguably one of the most valuable investments on your farm.

“Today’s sow is a true testament to the power of genetic improvement,” says Erin Brenneman, a day one farrowing specialist and education and event coordinator at Brenneman Pork. “Over the past few decades, focused selection for key maternal traits such as prolificacy, uniformity and piglet viability has transformed the modern sow into one of the most efficient and productive animals in agriculture. She is a cornerstone of modern agriculture, driving performance from farrowing to finish with consistency and power.”

Brenneman says the consistency of today’s sow has made a big difference in the industry and is a great improvement over years past.

“Production systems today are running in warp speed — with staffing issues, aging facilities, changes in legislation and standard operating procedures (SOPs),” adds Amanda Uitermarkt, USA technical director for JYGA Technologies. “Our sows have continued to show us they can produce well under a very wide variety of conditions. With the many advances in technologies and precision, we are more closely dialing in requirements of sows, minimizing wastage and improving productivity.”

The prolificacy of today’s sow is noteworthy. Just 25 years ago, Joe Popplewell, manager of POD Business for The Pork Group, Pork Division, remembers talking about 30 pigs per sow per year as something that may never happen, even though it was discussed.

“The top farms in the world today are doing 35+ pigs per sow per year,” Popplewell says.

Kevin Stuckey, sow division manager for Cooper Farms in Oakwood, Ohio, says the efficiency of today’s sow stands out to him as one of her superpowers.

“She has the capacity to produce these large litters of heavy pigs with less feed than was needed only a few years ago,” Stuckey adds.

Stuckey joins along with Uitermarkt, Popplewell and Jeremy Robertson, head of live production at Brenneman Pork, to discuss challenges and opportunities surrounding the modern sow.

What is the biggest challenge facing the U.S. sow herd today?
Popplewell: Herd health and keeping a solid workforce intact are the biggest challenges facing the U.S. sow herd. Keeping disease out of our sow herds is critical to stay in business. Costs continue to increase (insurance, utilities, labor, etc.) and subsequent margins continue to shrink. So, staying healthy and having a high level of production is critical for success.

Robertson: The pace of genetic improvement with changing health challenges is creating a difficult evolving landscape. Efficiency-driven swine genetics are moving at record speeds outpacing current nutrition, rearing and caregiving practices. Today’s sow herd is seeing record numbers of total born pigs driving demand on sows, nutrition and staffing to raise these large litters while improving loss. Imposing health challenges along with the demand on the herd is impacting throughput within the wean-to-finish phases.

Stuckey: At the barn level, it’s keeping our herds healthy. Compromised health is such a limiting factor to production. At the industry level, it’s securing enough demand for the quantity of pigs we can produce.

Uitermarkt: Survivability. We are losing too many sows (and gilts) too early in life. We are missing key steps in the gilt growth and management process that inhibits their long-term retention in the herd.

What is one of the best sow management tips you could offer another producer?
Popplewell: Invest in the best people and best biosecurity you can afford. Genetic companies have made sows prolific, so if we keep them healthy and can manage them, the rest of it is detail.

Robertson: Show up at the slat level. What does this mean? Regardless of the system, everything comes back to the owner of the pig. Understand the moving pieces of your business, understand your production numbers and, importantly, costs. Be your own best advocate continuously learning how to innovate and adapt.

Stuckey: Take care of the sow and she’ll do a lot of the pig raising for you.

Uitermarkt: Use data to make educated decisions but never stop teaching and emphasizing animal husbandry. All the data in the world can’t help our sows when we miss all the clinical signs when she’s having problems. In some cases, we have dialed in too well on tasks and goals, and we miss caring for animals as individuals. Take time to look at water nipples and make sure they have been used recently. Be observant to an off-feed sow breathing heavily at two days post-farrow. Walk pens daily and try and catch early-onset of lameness before she has to be removed from the pen.

Why does sow care need to be emphasized now more than ever?
Popplewell: Because of her prolificacy, she must have excellent care. My farm pickup is very dependable, requires little care and gets me from point A to point B, but it does it slowly, deliberately and without much comfort. A high-end sports car will get me there much faster and has a lot of cool gadgets, but I have to make sure it’s tuned up regularly or it won’t perform at that level.

Robertson: Topics such as nutrition, caregiving practices, housing demands and oxidative stress, combined with herd health, have evolved with genetic improvement and the sheer amounts of requirements from today’s genetic lines. We are seeing higher productivity from sows in a short time demanding daily care that does not allow sows to have a bad day. There are too many areas of modern sow production that have not evolved at the same pace, leaving more questions than answers. The one thing we do know is the best sow care can provide the best recipe setting the sow up for success — regardless of the demand of her production phase.

Stuckey: Today’s sow is so efficient and high performing that the gap between success and struggle has narrowed. Systems like Prop 12 can add to that challenge.

Uitermarkt: Our staff on farms are further removed from practicing animal husbandry, and the ratio of animals to staff is always pushed. Utilize tools and technologies that will allow you to spread more skilled labor over more sows. Let technologies and reports assist you in focusing on the animals that need assistance.

What’s something we need to talk more about when it comes to the modern sow?
Popplewell: There was a book called “Stockmanship” by Peter English, Gethyn Burgess, Ricardo Segundo and John Dunne. On the first page inside the book, it has a graphic labeled, “The Forgotten Pillar.” At the top is animal production. The pillars are genetics, management, nutrition, administration, housing and health. On the corner is a stockman in coveralls and boots holding up the corner of the building. I think that needs to be talked about more. SOPs are critical, particularly in large systems. Things need to be repeatable. I guarantee the people raising 35+ pigs per sow per year are following SOPs but are also practicing excellent stockmanship. I believe that is what differentiates excellent from good.

Robertson: Lactation is one of the most demanding phases of a sow’s life. Her body is under tremendous stress as she transitions from giving birth to feeding a large, hungry litter. How she’s supported during this time directly impacts not only the health of her piglets, but also her own ability to stay healthy, maintain condition and ultimately rebreed. If we neglect this phase, we compromise her lifetime productivity.

Stuckey: Training and making sure our people know the “why” of what we do. Making sure they are engaged.

Uitermarkt: Sows are biological animals with inherent variation. We’ve created SOPs with the assumption all sows will respond the same to feeding levels, treatment protocols and farrowing techniques. We can better educate that the variation within sow herds exists, and better benchmarking on individual animals and herd variation can assist us in providing better sow care.

From the Ground Up: How Claw Lesions Impact Sow Longevity

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:31:26 GMT

Claw lesions and lameness lead to the impairment of animal welfare, health and longevity of sows, a challenge the pork industry continues to battle.

“Sow lameness has a remarkable effect indirectly on a sow farm’s reproductive efficiency,” says Jason Ross, who serves as the chair of the Department of Animal Science at Iowa State University. “Sow lameness is a primary reason sows leave the herd early and as a result, compromises pigs weaned per sow per year.”

Recent studies by Zinpro have focused on quantifying the impact of lameness and claw lesions on reproduction and developing assessment tools to help producers make changes on a per-herd basis.

“Reproduction is the consequence of having a healthy sow, and to have a healthy sow, it is important to have all the organs and systems working correctly,” says Ton Kramer, business manager for Zinpro in South America.

The legs and the feet create the interaction between the animal and the environment, he explains.

“It’s important to have healthy feet and legs to allow the animal to manifest behaviors — going to feed, looking for water, reproducing — as best as possible,” Kramer says.

To better understand the prevalence and severity of claw lesions on farms, Zinpro created a database with more than 30,000 sows and recently started collecting performance data on total born and born alive piglets per sow.

What is the Severity of Sow Claw Lesions?

Using a dataset of more than 6,000 sows, researchers assessed sow’s feet, assigned lesion scores during lactation, and recorded reproduction performance.

“The research showed the animals that have higher severity of the lesions, especially due to overgrowth and erosion or white line lesions, are the animals that had the lowest number of piglets born alive and the highest stillbirth rate,” Kramer says.

The data showed 40% of sows were in the high or severe lesions cluster. This means these sows had 5% fewer piglets born alive, which can have a big effect on the economic sustainability of a production system, Kramer says.

Another study sought to establish a standardized method for evaluating claw lesions, which is crucial for recognizing, treating and preventing these disorders in sows.

In that study, a total of 3,583 sows from 20 Brazilian sow herds, were randomly selected and scored for lesions on the hind legs after parturition. In addition, 845 finishing pigs were randomly selected from a population of 6,000 slaughter pigs and scored for lesions on the left hind leg during pork processing.

Lesion scores were based on a four-point scale evaluating heel overgrowth and erosions, heel-sole crack, separation along the white line, horizontal and vertical wall cracks, overgrown toes and torn claws, according to Zinpro. A lesion index (L-Index) was calculated as a sum of the higher scores from each lesion, per sow or finishing pig.

Nutrition from the Ground Up

When it comes to nutrition, physiologically the most important function is keeping an animal alive and nutrients are first portioned to the main organs, Kramer says.

“When we think about ligaments, skin, mucosa and the claws, they are not the most important organs to keep an animal alive, so in situations of stress, they will not receive the amount of nutrients needed to make them better quality,” he explains.

If the animal has good quality of claws, the animal is likely to be in good health. Kramer notes the animal will be able to walk well, get food and water easier and maintain life better. Reproduction will be better, too.

“If you consider the inflammation, pain and stress related with the claw lesions, the animal will not perform as well because the inflammation that is related with the lesions will change other hormones that affect reproduction,” Kramer says.

Common Lesions Found in Sow Herds

Two lesions – heel overgrowth and erosion and white line – usually occur in different phases of life.

“Heel overgrowth and erosion increases on prevalence and severity during the reproductive life because as the sow grows, the weight bearing on the heels will increase,” Kramer says.

White line lesions are related more with young animals.

“We see gilts developing faster and faster and this is affecting tissue formation,” Kramer says. “The claws are not mature enough to support all the challenges on the farm — the movement of the animals, the moisture in the air, and the slatted floor environment.”

Kramer notes with pen gestation, there is more animal interaction.

“There are more fights happening as animals interact in a higher frequency, generating lesions and damaging the claw, therefore white line lesions are much more frequent on younger gilts than older animals,” he says.

Lesion Lessons
Kramer says it’s important to know if lesions are a problem in your herd. He recommends producers perform two assessments a year to understand claw health and the type of lesions present, as well as the severity of lesions in the animals.

“This is the first point to understand what is happening in the herd,” he says. “It is also important to understand flooring, handling and management, then nutrition. Assessing these will bring opportunities to understand what is in the feed, what is in the water that the animals are consuming, allowing producers to make the adjustments.”

Understanding the factors that affect claw lesions, including the environment, stress, genetics and nutrition, provides producers with opportunities to make adaptations.

“Any condition of stress will result in a change of the nutrient partitioning and inflammation will change the demands of nutrients,” he says. “Making the movement, transport and interaction of the animals as calm as possible will reduce the possibility of generating these lesions.”

Modern swine genetics have been selected for higher production and with that comes higher nutrition demands, Kramer says.

“Sows are producing 35 to 40 piglets per sow per year,” Kramer says. “This results in a higher demand of nutrients. Because of this, sows are not able to obtain all these nutrients to build a stronger claw. With proper nutrition, we can increase the possibility of having a healthier animal in the herd, or a healthier herd, and this will help to allow the animal to manifest their genetic productivity.”

Supplement Sows with Antioxidant Strategy to Move More Pigs Out the Door

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 15:07:48 GMT

Oxidative stress in sows, particularly during late gestation and lactation, arises from the metabolic demands of producing large litters and milk, leading to increased reactive oxygen species and potential damage to tissues, impacting reproductive performance and litter viability.

In a high stress event such as farrowing or weaning, the sow’s total antioxidant capacity declines, resulting in detrimental effects on piglet survivability and sow health. What can producers do to help minimize stress on the sow?

A new study sought to find an intervention or treatment to support highly prolific sows in the late gestation to farrowing periods. Ayva Bohr, a veterinary student at Iowa State University College of Medicine, took home the first-place award at the 2025 American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) annual meeting for her poster titled, “Effect of antioxidant supplementation in sows pre-farrow and during lactation on sow and piglet performance.”

Ayva Bohr

(Ayva Bohr)

The purpose of her study was to mitigate the effects of systemic oxidative stress and nutritional deficiencies in sows which has a subsequent effect on the health and productivity of her litter. She conducted her research under a natural unstable porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) challenge but she points out it could be applicable in other respiratory diseases or those similar to PRRS.

“We used a product called ImmuFend made by TechMix using a top-dress protocol for two different time periods of supplementation, and with a control group,” she explains. “Usually, this product is run through the water, but most sow farms don’t have farrowing rooms set up for this treatment, which is why we used it as a top dress.”

After collecting data points such as sow caliper score, farrowing records, piglet weights, weaning records, treatment and mortalities for sows and litters, they also collected subsequent litter data following sows to their next parity.

“The two most significant data points we discovered was number of pigs weaned per sow as well as piglet average daily gain (ADG). The group that received ImmuFend supplementation weaned a whole extra piglet in comparison to the group that received no ImmuFend, translating to a 17% increase in pigs weaned per sow,” Bohr says. “We also saw a statistically significant difference in piglet ADG in the two groups that received ImmuFend compared to the control group.”

After conducting an economic analysis, Bohr says the return on investment for each treatment group was 18:1 with an approximate 25-day supplementation and 26:1 with an approximate 10-day supplementation in comparison to the control group.

“This shows that supplementing sows with this antioxidant strategy at the time of a health challenge could improve piglet performance, move more pigs out the door, and have the potential to reduce the economic burden of these challenges for producers,” Bohr says.

Bohr was one of 15 students who competed in the Veterinary Student Poster Competition at the AASV annual meeting. Read more here.

Muscling Through: How Do Piglets from Sows with Inflammation Measure Up?

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:21:56 GMT

Sow health is critical to successful pork production, but despite our best efforts, illness sometimes strikes during pregnancy. We wanted to understand how the inflammation that accompanies sow sickness would affect piglet outcomes, especially muscle development, feed efficiency and meat yield and quality. It was a straightforward hypothesis, inflammation is known to disrupt muscle development, but as is often the case in experiments, it was not straightforward.

To cause inflammation in sows without introducing a live infection that could complicate piglet development, we used lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injections. LPS causes inflammation as if an infection is present, but it doesn’t cause disease or spread to other animals. We administered LPS at day 70 of gestation, giving injections every other day for two weeks to mimic a typical illness.

After farrowing, we tracked piglet performance from birth to market, measuring body weight, feed efficiency in the grow-finish phase, and muscle development through microscopic analysis of muscle cells. Finally, we evaluated meat yield and quality. The study included 14 sows (seven treated and seven untreated) and a total of 59 barrows and gilts.

Inflammation & Carcass Quality
Piglets from sows exposed to inflammation during gestation started life at a slight disadvantage, with lower birth and weaning weights. However, litter performance was unaffected as the number of piglets born alive and weaned was similar between groups. Despite our hypothesis that inflammation would hinder muscle development, we found no difference in the number or size of muscle fibers between piglets.
This suggests maternal inflammation did not disrupt the key muscle-building processes occurring in mid-gestation. By the time pigs entered the grow-finish phase at 66 days of age, early weight differences had disappeared, and growth rates remained similar across groups all the way to market. Surprisingly, pigs from inflamed sows even demonstrated slightly better feed efficiency.

Following these 59 pigs through slaughter and fabrication, we measured individual cut weights and lean meat yield. While pigs from inflamed sows had a slightly smaller loin eye area, the overall cut weights, carcass yields and loin quality — including color, marbling and pH — were unaffected. And when it came to bacon, belly firmness was similar between groups, meaning no anticipated issues for bacon production. At the end of the day, a packer should have no complaints about any of these pigs arriving at their facility.

Good News for Producers
Despite a few early setbacks, these pigs kept pace, performed efficiently and delivered meat quality packers expect. This study shows how adaptable pigs are, even when their start isn’t ideal. Although keeping sows healthy is always the goal, these studies provide good news: A rough start doesn’t necessarily mean a rough finish.

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