Synergy

Channel Your Sow’s Superpower to Improve Pig Livability

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 13:46:46 GMT

When it comes to rearing healthy pigs, sows possess the superpower – colostrum. That’s why Kara Stewart, assistant professor of animal sciences at Purdue University, is so invested in improving pig livability by starting with one of the most basic building blocks in a pig’s life.

Today’s sow is more productive than ever thanks to genetic selection for increased litter size, points out Jason Woodworth, research professor at Kansas State University.

“Unfortunately, increased litter size is also associated with lower birth weights and reduced piglet viability in addition to increased competition for milk and colostrum as there are more piglets than available functional teats to feed those pigs,” Woodworth says.

The resulting increased in prewean mortality is a big challenge for the industry as it represents lost opportunity for productivity and profitability.

“In theory, we’re losing pigs a little faster than we’re making them,” Stewart says. “We have a lot of work to do to help pigs get a better start.”

She’s a firm believer that colostrum is one of the best tools available to help swine producers make progress today.

Research shows one opportunity to improve pig livability is by helping lighter birthweight piglets drink more colostrum and ultimately reduce their mortality. Stewart says there are two ways to accomplish this – the sow needs to produce more colostrum or the piglet needs to drink more colostrum.

1. Produce Better Colostrum

• Parity
Parity two and parity three sows have higher colostrum production than parity one sows or older parity sows.

• Genotype
Although researchers know genotype affects colostrum production and composition, it’s not clear how much genotype really impacts colostrum production in modern day pigs, she notes. The dairy industry has started using some functional candidate gene approaches and been very successful in selecting for colostrum production.

• Teat location
Teats at the front are much better at producing colostrum and milk than the teats at the back.

• Endocrine status
The endocrine status of the sow can greatly change her colostrum production. Colostrum is positively correlated with prolactin and negatively correlated with progesterone levels before farrowing, Stewart explains. Data shows farrowing induction can end colostrogenesis early and transition the sow to whole milk production earlier, but in the same study colostrum intake in piglets from induced and non-induced sows were not different, so the overall impacts of this change is not known.

• Late Gestation Diet
Although the relationship between energy status and colostrum production is not very clear, altering dietary fat has been show to quickly alter colostrual fat. How this impacts the piglet still isn’t clear, but data shows that yeast and other fermented products being fed to the sows can increase the immunoglobulin concentrations in colostrum, she says, offering a little better immune protection for the piglets. Vitamins and minerals can also have an important impact on colostrum levels.

• Stress
There is little data available on how stress in the sow or the hormone cortisol impacts colostrum production, she notes. Colostrum is produced at the end of gestation, before the piglets are even born and is not correlated with litter size, so stress late in gestation has the potential to reduce colostrogensis.

“For every additional piglet born in the litter, every piglet in the litter drinks 22 to 42 grams less of colostrum. So, we’re taking the same amount of colostrum and dividing it by more piglets as we increase our litter sizes. We haven’t really seen any data that shows that we’re increasing colostrum production as we’re increasing our litter sizes,” she says.

2. Ingest More Colostrum

Stewart says there are three main factors that influence how much piglets drink: nursing behaviors, litter characteristics and fighting around the udder and birth order.

“I think those are some areas for research and investigation to happen,” Stewart says. “We’ve recently done a study looking at ways to try to stimulate piglets to go drink milk faster. In dairy cattle, if you give a calf a little dose of lactose, something sweet on their tongue, they start to have a suckling stimulus faster and will go to drink out of a bottle easier and faster.”

Her team tried this in piglets using a little 4 milliliter pump of sow colostrum or evaporated milk. They didn’t see any differences in the time to nursing and time to first suckle or their colostrum intake.

“We weren’t successful in stimulating nursing behaviors,” she says. “But there could be 100 other ideas to try to improve things.”

How Do We Move the Needle?

The multifactorial nature of colostrum intake and piglet survival makes it hard to determine if different management practices have any positive influence, Woodworth says.

“The high variability from one sow to the next leads to a large number of sows needing to be evaluated in order to determine if an improvement can be realized,” he adds.

This is the hard part. Most of the data that’s published is in low numbers of animals, in low numbers of litters or results in negatively impacting some piglets while helping others, Stewart says.

“For example, split suckling for three days straight reduced overall pre-weaning weight gain in your heavy pigs but advantaged your light birthweight piglets,” she says. “How much are we willing to take away from gain and growth in our heavyweights to make sure we bring up our lightweights to even it out?”

Some of the research ideas are also unrealistic to perform in commercial settings or require 5,000 piglets per treatment to see statistics to power a study to see differences in mortality. The data that academia has access to is limited by what’s published. In all of the published data, Stewart says there is almost never an impact of any of these management practices on colostrum intake or survival.

That’s why she sees great value around discussions between producers about what works and what doesn’t. Ultimately, there’s no replacement for a high quality, observant team providing care in the barn.

“When I think about the farms that show a good improvement in mortality from putting in one of these management practices, perhaps they’re really just putting people in the barn that are paying attention,” Stewart says. “We’re putting people next to the sow, that maybe when they’re drying the piglets, they’re also grabbing the sow’s piglet next door that’s about to get crushed. They’re hearing the screaming piglets and getting them out in time to save them. They’re noticing a sow hasn’t farrowed or popped out a pig in a while, so they’re providing more assistance.”

Stewart and Woodworth are part of the Pig Livability group, a team from Iowa State University, Kansas State University and Purdue University that was formed because of the financial support of National Pork Board and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to create a targeted emphasis on improving livability in all phases of swine production. For more information on the research trials, literature reviews and projects that have been conducted to generate information to help reduce mortality, visit www.piglivability.org .

Read more from the Synergy on the Sow Farm Series:

Labor Turnover and Biosecurity: Avoid a Multi-Million Dollar Mistake

Employee Emotional Health: The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

Don’t Ignore Conflict on the Farm

Invest in Employee Mental Health to Maintain a Successful Sow Farm

Fight Back Against Lameness

Lameness: The Leading Identifiable Reason for Sow Mortality

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Invest in Employee Mental Health to Maintain a Successful Sow Farm

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 18:44:12 GMT

Being an advocate for your employees is one of the best things you can do as a sow farm manager because it pays off in their work and in their mental health, says Danielle Voelkel, a sow farm manager for New Fashion Pork in Thorp, Wis.

“If you give to their emotional bank account, they will make sure your farm is where it should be,” Voelkel says.

For Voelkel, this investment often starts with small things like saying hello to each employee in the morning. She says there have been multiple instances where she got caught up working and didn’t stop in to say good morning. She says little things go a long way.

“I’m always checking in and asking them how it’s going,” she explains. “I think it’s great to be out in the barn and spend time working alongside them. It’s a benefit to me because I get to see their happy faces and that motivates me as well.”

Proper onboarding and continuous training is essential so employees understand the why and how behind sow and piglet health, says Stacey Voight, Technical Service North America PIC.

“Why is it important that we treat a piglet or sow for the required amount of time? Why is it important that we recognize a lame/sick animal in a timely manner? Being equipped with that knowledge, improves the well-being of the employees and animals,” Voight says.

Employee Emotional Health:
The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

It’s hard to work with 500-pound sows, Voelkel says. She believes it is helpful for her team to know that she understands how hard it is and how frustrating it can be at times to work on a sow farm.

“I try to lend a hand as much as I can and make sure that they know that they’re not alone in this either,” she says.

And when the worst things happen, knowledge and understanding are key to helping employees move forward.

“Employees need to understand that they did everything they could to provide those animals with proper care,” Voight says.

More from the Synergy on the Farm Series by Farm Journal’s PORK:

Employee Emotional Health: The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

Fight Back Against Lameness

Lameness: The Leading Identifiable Reason for Sow Mortalit y

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:54:41 GMT

When John Deen, DVM, PhD and swine epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, was a kid, he remembers a time when sow mortality was not a problem.

“It was a rarity on my parents’ farm when we dragged a sow out of the barn,” Deen says. “That has changed over time and it’s partly our creation.”

He is concerned how little gets done in many sow barns on the weekends and believes understanding when things happen is critically important.

“What happens when the lights go off – when we leave the barn – is a major concern. Sow care interventions fit somewhere below breeding the sows and even below getting dead sows out of the barn. Simply understanding and having the resources and the emphasis in place seems to make a big difference,” Deen says.

Here are seven sow management trends to watch.

1. Prioritize production costs.

The challenges of this past year have changed the focus from increasing performance to optimizing performance through more efficient and sustainable cost of production strategies, explains Sergio Canavate, DVM, technical services manager with PIC.

“We need to ask ourselves, are the right feed management strategies in place? Is body condition scoring accurate and consistent? How can we manage sow body condition better through feed?” says Fred Kuhr, production supervisor for sows and finishing at Dykhuis Farms.

Feed is a producer’s largest cost, so grow-finish feed efficiency must also be a focus, says Mark Knauer, Ph.D., associate professor and Extension swine specialist at North Carolina State University.

“While the majority of costs in pig production come in the grow-finish phase, good sow management can help reduce weaned pig cost and set piglets up for success in the grow-finish phase,” Knauer says.

Using known practices like increasing weaning age, batch farrowing or improving gilt acclimation into the sow farm can maximize weaned pig quality.

2. Focus on gilt selection.

Selecting replacement gilts should be done with care and attention to many factors. Don’t underestimate the importance of selecting only the best females to move on to the role of sow. Every gilt should not become a sow.

“We’re finding that mis-selection of sows results in a group that has a higher mortality. In other words, we’re keeping back sows we shouldn’t be keeping when we’re sorting gilts, and we see higher mortality in those groups as well,” Deen says.

Some experts argue that our industry is not great at knowing what selection factors translate into sow longevity. However, research shows vulva size, teat count and structural soundness are all important selection traits that do pay off.

3. Emphasize gilt and sow management.

“Breeding gilts at the right age and weight and keeping them in optimal body condition from the start will increase lifetime productive performance and retention in sow herds,” Canavate says.

If a sow has been well cared for since before first breeding, she’ll probably require less maintenance to do her job, which is raising quality pigs.

“New technology will bring new opportunity to evaluate herds based on average sow age, the length of time sows stay in the system and how fast we have to turn,” Kuhr adds. “We’ll be able to look at more data points to help predict how long a sow will stay in the system.”

4. Take another look at litter size.

Although increasing litter size has been a primary focus over the past decade, Canavate believes the focus on litter size will likely evolve to include more factors like piglet quality at birth and weaning.

“What does an optimal litter size look like for an individual operation?” Knauer asks. “Unless U.S. producers use more nurse sows, provide supplemental nutrition for piglets during lactation or bolster sow lactation feed intake, litter size may need to plateau at some point.”

Reduced emphasis on litter size would allow for increased emphasis on other traits, such as progeny feed cost, experts say.

5. Utilize artificial intelligence and labor more effectively.

The need to reduce labor needs while maintaining productivity and sow well-being is a trend that won’t go away anytime soon. Many farms don’t have enough labor due to cost and availability. This leaves the industry asking a tough question: How can we make the most of the labor we have?

From detecting estrus to getting sows bred, and from loading sows into farrowing to making sure sows are eating well in lactation, there are many opportunities to improve management practices and efficiencies, Knauer says.

“Where else can we save time?” Knauer asks. “For example, recent data suggests drying piglets does not enhance piglet survival. Therefore, time may be better spent checking temperatures on heat mats versus drying piglets. In addition, I think we can use pre-farrow feeding strategies to reduce labor needed to assist farrowings. If we can save labor in any of these areas, we can do a better job putting an eye on every sow every day.”

Smart barns and leveraging artificial intelligence technologies are another example and will go a long way to help control barn environment, organize pig flows and manage data, he adds.

6. Implement real-time data into daily decision-making.

Most believe sow farm data has been highly underutilized, but that could change with more advanced technology.

“The sow business is going to experience a huge upsurge in technology,” Kuhr says. “Employees are going to be exposed to more data, quicker. And, decision-making will get easier because new technologies will help employees make more informed decisions on the spot.”

Knauer says artificial intelligence algorithms will help get real-time answers to find more value from existing data. Paperless technology, like handheld scanners, will be more common on sow farms. They’ll speed up data capture and information management, predicts Canavate.

7. Pay attention to consumer welfare concerns.

Initiatives such as California’s Proposition 12 and consumer concerns over antibiotic usage will continue to shape the way U.S. pig farmers operate.

“I’m seeing more group housing, less antibiotics and enhanced biosecurity protocols,” Canavate says. “These evolutions will require unique management strategies to keep pigs healthy and stay profitable.”

Kuhr says at the end of the day, the key is to “take care of the animals, and they will take care of us.”

Stay tuned for more in the Synergy on the Sow Farm series from Farm Journal’s PORK.

Related Stories:

Precision Feeding: What’s Best for the Sow?

Sow Death Loss: What’s Beneath the Iceberg?

Why Training Your Employees is Crucial to Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Employee Emotional Health: The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:53:47 GMT

It’s hard when sows die, says Luis Lopez, breeding team lead at New Fashion Pork’s 1,400-sow farm in Thorp, Wis.

“It’s hard when you care for a sow the best you can and she can’t recover and ends up being euthanized,” Lopez adds. “You want her to thrive and live for as long as she can, but you don’t want her to suffer either.”

The reality that you can do everything right and still lose sows is a hard thing to deal with day in and day out. It’s hard to expect the unexpected.

Sow farm manager Danielle Voelkel says she’s concerned about the heavy load Lopez and other employees face.

“You can’t help but get attached to the sow and it’s not easy having to the call the shots on when is enough,” Voelkel says. “We try everything possible before we say, ‘OK, it’s time.’ Employees always blame themselves and that’s where I come in and remind them that they can’t know when a sow is going to slip and hurt her leg. They can’t know when disease is going to strike. It’s not their fault when bad things happen.”

Health challenges that result in mortality is a reality sow farm workers face every day from pre-wean mortality to sow death, says Stacey Voight, Technical Service North America PIC.

“After being exposed to those challenges, it is typical that depression can set in. Retainment of employees is becoming more difficult because those individuals are not prepared mentally for mortality situations,” Voight says. “It is important that owners and managers of farms understand the emotional health of their employees is their most important asset.”

Pushing Through Doesn’t Work

The swine industry can’t ignore the reality there’s a rising need to step up emotional support for employees, especially on the sow farm. Athena Diesch-Chham, a farm girl and now a clinical social worker and owner of Restorative Path Counseling and Wellbeing, says she understands the “keep pushing through because at some point things will turn around” mentality, but it concerns her.

“We can’t dismiss every time we are disappointed and frustrated by the loss of another litter or another sow. When we dismiss those feelings, we reinforce for our brain and body that how we feel doesn’t matter,” Diesch-Chham says. “If it doesn’t matter, we wouldn’t care. And that’s not a thing in pig farming.”

Animal caretakers care deeply about the animals they are caretaking for, so she says they must allow themselves that negative emotional experience and then figure out what to do with it.

“Dismissing your feelings is an option,” she points out. “But every time we dismiss our own feelings, we make it easy for everybody else to dismiss our feelings. Don’t wallow in those feelings, but acknowledge it is painful. It hurts.”

Then, use those feelings as motivation to keep moving forward and keep showing up because it’s important.

Photo source: Lindsey Pound, Farm Journal

Conflict Isn’t Bad

Working side by side with the same people every day is not a bad thing, Voelkel says. She often refers to her team as a family. They spend a lot of time together and work toward common goals. But it’s not without challenges.

“Some of the most dysfunctional family dynamics happen in work families,” Diesch-Chham says. “When there are so many interrelated relationships within the work family, we are inevitably asking people to prioritize which of those relationships is more important in a conflict and that is a lose-lose situation.”

Add a layer of grief loss and it’s easy to see why conflict happens on the sow farm. When employees are in emotionally vulnerable spaces, conflict is natural. Everyone handles it differently, too. This makes the role of a sow farm manager even more complicated.

“Because you feel like you are part of a family, you don’t want to step on anyone’s toes but it’s natural to get frustrated at times,” Voelkel says.

The key is addressing it, Diesch-Chham explains. The “Midwestern-nice, passive-aggressive” is not helping your farm’s productivity.

“Conflict has such a negative connotation. Everybody thinks conflict will result in a big old blowout. But it doesn’t need to,” Diesch-Chham says. “We can approach a situation and discuss what happened. How do we feel about it? What can we do about it? What can we learn from it?”

She’s intentional about the next part of dealing with conflict: move forward. Recognize that moving forward is key – not pretending something didn’t happen. It’s also wise to recognize within conflict, even though it feels like it needs addressed immediately, it’s always beneficial to take a moment to breathe and let your adrenaline wear down.

“I used to get so worked up over the littlest things,” Voelkel says. “One of the best lessons I learned was if it’s not going to matter to me in an hour, it should not bother me this bad right now. I’ve learned to take a step back and think before I speak, especially when there’s conflict.”

She’s also learned to really listen to what her employees are saying.

Photo source: PIC

Counteract Compassion Fatigue

It’s often that simple act of acknowledging what employees are experiencing that makes the difference. One of the problems Diesch-Chham is seeing on the farm is compassion fatigue or the fatigue that comes from helping others (pigs included).

“It’s walking into the sow barn and feeling the heaviness of what’s happening in there during a disease break, for example, and feeling defeated because we aren’t where we want to be,” Diesch-Chham says.
One of the challenges with compassion fatigue, she explains, is that it causes people to isolate, keep their head down and keep moving.

“When we start landing there, we need to connect to people who are important to us, who see us for who we are, who can acknowledge the heaviness that we’re facing,” Diesch-Chham says. “We need someone to say, ‘I can hear how this is really hard. I can imagine that going to work every day feels like a losing battle.’”

Ignoring the fatigue of caretaking doesn’t work. Eventually, the frustration and exhaustion show up in the daily routine. When employees are struggling, the barn will struggle, too.

“When an employee is having a hard time, I feel it, other employees feel it. Not only do we feel it, but the sows know it, too,” says Voelkel. “The sows know when you are mad and then you get more worked up because they don’t want to move.”

Photo source: Jennifer Shike

You Can’t Survive Without You

Looking out for your employees’ emotional health is key to your farm’s success. Diesch-Chham says she recognizes that when someone is in an “emotionally fried” space like compassion fatigue, the “self-care” solution is a hard sell.

That’s why she recommends mutual care.

“Mutual care can look like a lot of things. If you have a garden, and your garden is plentiful, mutual care can be bringing vegetables from your garden to share with your team,” Diesch-Chham says. “It could be cooking. I like to feed massive quantities of people – it feels good and allows me to nurture people and gets to that caretaking need.”

The trick is before she caretakes for anybody else, cooking allows her to do something that is really beneficial for her.

“Multiple people get benefit from one act of what seems like selfish self-care, but actually falls into that mutual care spot,” she adds. “Finding ways to take care of ourselves that also allows us to support others.”

In addition to mutual care, she recommends purposeful, intentional breaks. When someone experiences compassion fatigue, breaks often feel like less of an option, she says.

“As much as they’re apathetic about the work, they’re also hyper-focused about them having to be the one to do the work. ‘They can’t do it without me’ sets in,” Diesch-Chham says. “Guess what? You can’t survive without you either. That’s where you’re headed if you don’t take a break.”

She says it’s important to consider the long game versus the short game.

“So many of us approach stuff in that short game mentality of ‘I just have to get through this and then it will be better.’ If COVID taught us anything, it doesn’t necessarily get better as quickly as we think it does,” Diesch-Chham says. “Sure, you can work a lot, but if you push that limit, how much time will you need to take off to get back from that?”

Photo source: PIC

Recognize What You Don’t Know

At the end of the day, Voelkel and others in a sow farm manager role weren’t hired to be mental health professionals. There’s a point where we all have to recognize what we know and what we don’t know. But Diesch-Chham says everybody can do some work around mental health first aid – to be able to grow in that knowledge.

“Mental health first aid training is a free, easy thing you can do online,” she says. “The basics of the program is learning how to ask questions, acknowledge what you are seeing and engage, instead of doing what so many of us are more comfortable doing – keeping our head down and blinders on.”

The livestock industry is full of hardworking, high-achieving people who strive for perfection like Luis Lopez, the breeding team lead on Voelkel’s crew.

“I feel valuable by working with my team and giving them my best self every day,” Lopez says. “I work by example to keep my team on the right path.”

But Diesch-Chham points out that while this is what makes our industry the success it is today, it’s also something we need to keep an eye on.

“When we don’t feel like we’re at our best – when our best is not getting the results we want – there is a little voice inside of us that reinforces that we’re not doing enough, not trying enough, not pushing hard enough. And that is the thing that will grind us into a pulp,” she says.

We have to recognize that what we are doing is what we can do today, Diesch-Chham says.

“If I take care of myself, if I take care of my team today, maybe all of us can show up and give a little bit differently tomorrow, maybe. But if this is all we have today, and this is all we have tomorrow, then we’re going to work with that,” she says. “Pushing to that next level doesn’t always have to happen because most of the time there isn’t a next level to push to.”

Learn more about mental health first aid here.

More from the Synergy on the Farm Series by Farm Journal’s PORK:

Fight Back Against Lameness

Lameness: The Leading Identifiable Reason for Sow Mortalit y

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Labor Turnover and Biosecurity: Avoid a Multi-Million Dollar Mistake

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:53:41 GMT

Biosecurity on the sow farm is where it all begins. If the sows aren’t healthy, the piglets won’t be either.

“There’s a lot of little steps to follow when it comes to biosecurity, but each step can be a million-dollar mistake if you’re not careful,” says Sarah Probst Miller, DVM, president, creative director and owner of AgCreate Solutions and of Pork Avenue Training Portal. “On larger farms, it’s a multimillion-dollar mistake if we let a disease like porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) or porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) in.”

Whether it’s using the fingernail brush in the shower or not letting a socked foot touch the floor before they swing over on a bench system, Probst Miller says every detail matters when you’re talking about preventing a bacteria or virus from walking onto your farm.

Biosecurity Breaches

Labor shortages have hit the agriculture industry hard and have become an even greater threat to the U.S. pork industry today. Although there is no cookie-cutter figure across U.S. swine farms when it comes to labor turnover, Probst Miller says some systems report greater than 100% turnover each year and others are closer to 15%.

This turnover makes biosecurity breaches even more plausible because protocols aren’t always intuitive, explains Megan Hood, DVM, of Reick’s Veterinary Research and Consulting.

“When it comes to biosecurity practices, it takes an extra step of training to help employees learn those steps,” Hood says. “We’ve found it not only takes going through the rules with employees, but they need some understanding about why that protocol is important. Otherwise, you’ll have employees that aren’t following the protocol all the way because they don’t understand its importance.”

Hood performs biosecurity audits for farms and says she can quickly spot a farm with new employees when she opens the entry area to find shoes scattered all over the place.

“Usually when you cross over a bench, you take off your shoes in a certain way so you can physically get over the bench without putting your stocking feet on the floor,” Hood says. “If I see shoes all over, that’s an immediate red flag.”

This is just one of the little mistakes that become major openings for disease to enter in. Other breaches include employees trying to carry cell phones onto a farm, repairmen taking dirty tools from farm to farm in the back of their truck, or employees who live together but work on different farms – especially when one farm is PRRS-positive and one is PRRS-negative, Hood says.

High turnover results in added opportunity for mistakes to happen, especially if training is not consistent or employees are getting trained by somebody who’s only been working on the farm for a couple of months, she adds. Unfortunately, employees may get trained by someone who isn’t 100% trained themselves because of staffing situations.

Adults Don’t Learn Like Kids

This is one reason why Probst Miller has devoted her career medicine to training and educating others since 2011.

“When I left traditional practice, I realized that to change how people treated animals, I needed to be able to change people – specifically behavior in people,” Probst Miller says. “When we’re talking about training, we’re talking about instilling a particular behavior or competency in people.”

So, she decided to learn more about how adults learn. She discovered adults are quite different than kids when it comes to learning.

“Children absorb things like crazy,” Probst Miller says. “Whether it’s relevant to them or not, they’re going to learn their times tables and the states and capitals. That’s what kids do, but adults don’t.”

Science says if you give an adult written instructions and tell them to follow them, they’ll do it about 10% of the time, she explains. If you talk to them over the phone and explain the instructions, science shows they’ll get it right about 20% of the time. Add in a visual experience like a video, and people will be about 50% competent.

“But, that’s not good enough when it comes to biosecurity,” Probst Miller says.

In addition, employees often get nervous when trying to learn new things. If their adrenaline is at the right level, Probst Miller says they are more likely to pay attention. That’s why it’s important to devise training experiences that will get their attention, but not make them fearful or overwhelmed.

“We have to be careful,” she adds. “If adrenaline moves too high, mammals as a species tend to fight, run away or freeze and play dead. If a new employee is nervous already going into a new environment, their adrenaline is already at a tenuous level. If they are given a situation that is scary or unusual, it’s going to go past the point of them being able to learn.”

A New Philosophy

This is why Probst Miller landed on a simple, but powerful training philosophy of “See it. Do it. Teach it.” For every competency on the farm, we want employees to go through that three-step process, she says.

We start by showing them a video and then take people through a simulation of the desired end skills.

“That’s part of the seed experience where they are actually going to do those skills for the first time in a safe environment,” Miller says. “They are going to virtually put on booties when they step out of their car. They are going to virtually swing over the bench and put their clothes in the right spot, etc.”

The next step is to actually do the work on the farm.

“If the farm assigns a mentor to that person to do the task with the person for the first time, we’re able to move competencies from 50% up to 70% to 80%. That’s huge – we almost got a B in the class. But for biosecurity, we need an A student,” Probst Miller says.

The final part of the process – teach it – becomes the differentiator.

“We found that if that trainee knows they have to teach back what they learned to a mentor, before they even start the process, a little adrenaline hooks them into learning more,” she says. “That person subsequently engages. When mentors remind them the final test of competency is being able to teach it, they’re more motivated to engage.”

The trick is actually getting to this point. Farms have to schedule that “teach it” experience. Allow the trainee the stage and find a good mentor or on-farm verifier to listen, Probst Miller says.

“Obviously, with something like biosecurity or animal welfare, if the person teaches back something completely wrong, you intervene and say, ‘Wait, don’t put that sock down.’ Then you offer the correction and give them back the stage. ‘Try again, I’m back to being the student. Teach me how to do this again,’” Probst Miller says.

When a person goes through the three-part learning process, it moves them into that 95% competency range, which Probst Miller says is pretty darn good.

“For something like biosecurity, investing in that type of training is important. You can do it as individuals or as a group. You can do it using our tools or try it yourself by taking people through those three steps, so you know you’re creating the greatest opportunity for success,” Probst Miller says.

Put the Theory to Work

Hood put this process to work in a research project she conducted at a boar stud. Her colleague, boar stud expert Darwin Reicks, DVM, worked with Probst Miller’s team on a series of learning experiences delivered on Pork Avenue with other learning experiences for a boar stud curriculum. Hood took part of the curriculum and put it to the test.

“Although my project was done on a boar stud, the concepts are very applicable to sow farms. If training is not consistent, things can be lost along the way and it can hurt your biosecurity,” Hood says.

Employees started with five-minute training videos that ended with a simulation-type quiz to make sure the employee was paying attention and learned what Hood wanted them to learn from the video. After the videos were over, trainees, along with staff members, performed the “do it” section of the exercise.

“They went out into the barn with the trainees and practiced what they had just learned – whether that was collecting a boar or crossing over a bench,” Hood says.

After performing those exercises, Hood had them teach her how to perform the tasks. She said she was happy with the results and shared her research at the recent Allen D. Leman Swine Conference.

“No matter what subject you’re training people on, it’s important staff are trained the same way each time,” Hood says. “Then, make sure training materials are available in that person’s original language. Finally, give the training materials in a way that can keep that employees’ attention and not overwhelm them.”

Investment and Validation

One of the things that surprised Hood most after completing this project was the feedback from employees who felt like the company had truly invested in them through this training experience.

“At the end of the day if you are experiencing high employee turnover, the ultimate solution is to keep employees,” Hood says. “Showing our employees we have invested in them – through a training program or something else – helps with employee retention and solves our problem of high turnover which can lead to biosecurity breakdown.”

As humans, we are strongly peer-influenced, Probst Miller says. People on our farms are always teaching each other – whether we want them to or not.

“If I see Joe doing something on the farm a certain way, it usually overrides anything written down or told to me on the farm. But if I’ve been through the three-step training, I’m less likely to be influenced by peers doing it a wrong way. I’m more likely to stand up and say, ‘that’s not right’ because my mentor and verifier assured me,” Miller says. “We are creating people who are validated by their peers doing the right thing which is pretty powerful.”

During the process of mentoring and verifying, Miller reminds people they aren’t just developing employees, they are developing future leaders.

“We are good at creating good ‘pig people,’ but we need to get better at creating good ‘people people.’ By giving employees the opportunity to mentor a variety of different people on a specific task, they learn how to flex different behavioral styles,” she says. “And that is wonderful training for our future managers. In the ‘teach it’ phase, they are learning the art of how to listen – a giant manager skill.”

After all, the best managers listen to problems and help find solutions. In general, research shows people leave managers not jobs.

“Good managers train. But what we are suggesting is that good managers train well – following the science of how adults learn. I agree people are going to stay because they have a good manager,” Probst Miller says. “A good training program takes a good manager and makes them great. Then, trained people start to positively influence other things on farms like keeping a multi-million disease out.”

More from the Synergy on the Sow Farm Series:

Employee Emotional Health: The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

Invest in Employee Mental Health to Maintain a Successful Sow Farm

Don’t Ignore Conflict on the Farm

Fight Back Against Lameness

Lameness: The Leading Identifiable Reason for Sow Mortalit y

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Lameness: The Leading Identifiable Reason for Sow Mortality

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 13:34:35 GMT

Ongoing research aims to provide clarity on why sows die. What’s challenging about sow mortality is the largest contributor to mortality is a bucket of reasons labeled “unknown.”

“There are many reasons why sows die that no one has a good understanding of,” says Corey Carpenter, account manager at Zinpro. “But the leading identifiable reason is lameness. It’s the first reason people can actually identify why sows die.”

The modern sow is expected to maintain optimum performance to keep generating at the levels they are today, explains Benny Mote, University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant professor and swine Extension specialist.

“Any hiccup in health or structure or anything that will keep them from getting feed or maintaining peak performance, will have a negative impact on that sow’s well-being, health and productive life,” he says.

Sound feet and legs are needed to get up and down in crates, as well as to find the feeder in loose sow housing.

Why is Lameness Still an Issue?

Lameness is a multifactorial issue. It can be caused by everything from the management and environment of the sow to gilt development to nutrition to genetics, just to name a few. “Naturally, we gravitate toward the ones we know we can control or that we have the most knowledge on,” Carpenter adds.

Big expansions in sow numbers are one reason Mote believes lameness continues to be a challenge.

“On some big sow farms, we’ve had big depop-repop events due to health,” Mote says. “When you do that, you’re taking a large number of females on an influx when they come back into those farms. When you take large numbers, no matter how good your multipliers are, you never build in enough cushion. You push selection rates because of the large need for gilts at the sow farm and send gilts that would have otherwise been sold as market hogs.”

The pork industry is teetering on the edge like the supply chain during the pandemic: just in time. 2020 showed the world that rarely works.

“We’re running our multipliers at ‘just enough,’” Mote says. “We need to get away from the plug-a-hole mentality and find gilts that will give us three parities. If they don’t, they aren’t paying their bills.”

3 Areas to Watch

1. Group housing
For decades, the industry has selected gilts for confinement raised off of sows in crates. Now the industry needs sounder females than ever, especially considering the steps sows will take in larger, 200-sow pens, Mote says.

“They have to walk around and make their rounds to be able to get feed and water. We’re asking them to do something completely different than where the industry has been the past 30 to 40 years,” he says. “We have a learning curve there. When you move into these big pens, if they’re a little bit lame, they may get picked on and they may not make as many trips to the feeder to get their allocation.”

He says the industry is making these group environments better, for example pointing slats a certain way in the alleys because of how sows walk.

“It’s a different game now because we’ve also lost some husbandry skills by moving pigs indoors,” Mote says. “If we go where Proposition 12 is pushing things, where sows don’t get to be in stalls during breeding, they are going to be riding each other and fighting in a very critical stage.”

Of course, this will happen after the big nutrient demand of lactation that can potentially lead to brittle bones and weak joints. Simply put, it’s even more important to find sound replacements.

2. Nutrition
Mote and his team of graduate students have been studying how feeding gilts different rations to get gilts growing on two different planes affects feet and leg structure over time. Unfortunately, this long-term project just came to a halt due to a disease challenge, Mote says. “Some of

the things we did identify, however, are that gilts’ feet and leg structure changed over time. We saw animals get a little more cushion to their pasterns and hocks as they aged. We also saw that with gestational stage,” he says. “One of the other neat things we noticed was toe length was changing.”

Marking the toes, they tracked how the toe was growing or wearing across various time points. Early results showed a cyclical upward trend in total toe length throughout the sow’s reproductive lifetime, with exponential growth taking place from the midpoint of gestation throughout weaning and rapid wearing from weaning back to the midpoint of the following gestation.

“Some people are trimming toes and dewclaws,” he says. “Knowing you get a cyclic pattern in toe growth dependent on gestational stage could help for knowing when to trim and when to wait.”

Scientific literature also provides evidence certain types of complex minerals can reach target tissues.

“When you break down the physiology of the claw and foot, and why lameness occurs, there’s a relationship between the value minerals provide and those target tissues,” Carpenter says.

But this doesn’t mean you can just provide more of those trace minerals. Absorption is critical, he says. There’s gene expression for “I need more zinc, and I need to send it to the claw.”

3. Genetics
Many structure traits have a 0.2 or 0.3 heritability, so we can make good progress on improving structural soundness through genetics, Mote says.

“The challenge is accurately getting the phenotype on the traits in a timely manner to make selection decisions on it. That’s where the industry has struggled,” he says. “Some genetic companies are obtaining more true phenotype measurements they can use for selection. The next step is we have to do more automated phenotyping.”

Computer vision allows for the capture of some metrics now such as stride length and angles. Mote believes the opportunities ahead are exciting to capture more phenotype data.

“Walk a gilt past a camera to get her side view and pick up stride length,” he explains. “When she stops, it gets feet and leg angles. Then, compare to historic data that shows animals with XYZ angles tend to last X long. And use that to help make decisions.”

He’s quick to point out the industry can’t ever get away from good selectors, but technology can provide an extra buffer to help producers make progress.

Mote says the pork industry can’t afford to let the lameness issue worsen.

“We have to be extremely careful as an industry not to lose our social license on sow mortality,” Mote says. “We need to address it as an industry before we get a negative light on it.”

More from the Synergy on the Sow Farm Series:

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Don't Ignore Conflict on the Farm

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 16:48:32 GMT

Conflict. Everyone wants to avoid it, but experts say that’s never a good move.

Basic human needs feed into conflict all the time, says Athena Diesch-Chham, a farm girl and now a clinical social worker and owner of Restorative Path Counseling and Wellbeing. Sometimes conflict can be addressed by answering these important questions.

1. Have we gotten the nutrition we need?
2. Are we staying hydrated?
3. Are we taking breaks?
4. Do we have the opportunity to connect with people who are important to us outside of work and in work?
5. Do we feel valued?

The last question may be one of the most important. “If we don’t feel valued, Conflict is way easier to jump to,” she says.

How Do You Solve Conflict on the Farm?

So, when conflict happens, and you can tell an employee is visibly upset, what should the sow farm manager or a colleague do to help?

Acknowledge and validate.

“Here’s one way to approach it,” Diesch-Chham offers. “Say, ‘I’ve seen you are struggling today, I want to let you know that’s OK. I want to check in to see if there is anything I can do to help. If you need a space to talk through any of it, I’m here.’”

Farm culture says ‘Uh-oh. They have feelings, head down. Don’t call attention to that.’ Fight against that, she says.

“We don’t live or work in a vacuum. This is not the only thing we have in our lives. When we have things happening, and we need to acknowledge it,” Diesch-Chham says.

Talking about emotions is always helpful.

“The cool thing about emotions is if we name someone’s emotion and we name it incorrectly, they will tell you. If you name it correctly, they will immediately feel validated, seen or heard,” she explains. “Either way, you can’t lose because you’ve helped them engage in it.”

More from the Synergy on the Farm Series by Farm Journal’s PORK:

Employee Emotional Health: The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

Invest in Employee Mental Health to Maintain a Successful Sow Farm

Fight Back Against Lameness

Lameness: The Leading Identifiable Reason for Sow Mortalit y

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Fight Back Against Lameness

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 14:00:00 GMT

The No. 1 known reason why sows leave the herd early is lameness. Although it’s not a new problem, it’s become a problem that U.S. pork producers can’t afford to ignore anymore.

Benny Mote, University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant professor and swine Extension specialist, believes producers can help tackle the lameness issue in their herds by focusing on these three areas.

1. Gilt selection

Gilt selection is key to make improvements, Mote says. “Don’t be afraid to put extra pressure on your selector if it’s internal. If they do a good job, reward them. If you get it hired in, push the genetic companies for a target for delivering animals,” he adds.

Last month, Mote visited a farm with world-class production. But their death loss was high, he says.

“When I looked at their gilts, I could see the gilts coming in were really straight fronted and toed out. I thought, ‘If I was walking in like that, then I wouldn’t make it very long either,’” he says.

2. Visual appraisal

Don’t underestimate the importance of walking pens and visually appraising animals that need to be pulled for treatment, he explains.

“Walk everything,” Mote says. “Take a look at every animal. Pull animals out in group housing and treat for lameness issues when needed.”

3. Hygiene

Cleanliness of a pen is important, he adds.

“If sows get a crack or break in their hoof, and are walking through a lot of manure, it will get infected,” Mote says. “That is just going to compound the issue. Cleanliness will go a long way in preventing future lameness issues.”

More from the Synergy on the Sow Farm Series:

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Study to Investigate Potential Mechanisms that Control Uterine Prolapse Susceptibility

Thu, 19 May 2022 20:20:45 GMT

Most traits of importance in the swine industry are affected by both genetics and environmental factors, including nutrition, management, etc. Uterine prolapse appears to be no exception to this, says Jack Dekkers, distinguished professor of animal breeding and genetics at Iowa State University.

“In order to address issues such as uterine prolapse, an interdisciplinary approach is needed to improve swine production and address issues that arise,” Dekkers says. “The project on pig livability funded by National Pork Board and led by Jason Ross, the Lloyd Anderson professor in physiology at Iowa State University and director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center, used an interdisciplinary team of experts in reproduction, nutrition, genetics, economics, veterinary medicine, animal well-being, epidemiology, and production management, to understand why some herds have higher incidence of pelvic organ prolapse (POP).”

That’s why he’s looking forward to a new collaborative project one of his students will be part of this summer during an internship in The Netherlands with Topigs Norsvin to further explore the data in the study led by Jenelle Dunkelberger, a geneticist with Topigs Norsvin.

“The current project will add a molecular genetics and genomics approach to this interdisciplinary team, capitalizing on a dataset where there’s clear evidence of the presence of a genetic basis to uterine prolapse,” Dekkers says.

Vishesh Bhatia, a Ph.D. student in genetics in the Department of Animal Science at Iowa State University, will not only be learning about the swine industry in the Netherlands and the workings of an international swine breeding organization, but he will conduct further genetic analysis of the comprehensive data set on uterine prolapse that Topigs Norsvin has collected.

His research will be under the direction of Dekkers and Ross, in collaboration with geneticists at Topigs Norsvin.

“Having already determined that uterine prolapse has substantial heritability in the data collected by Topigs Norsvin, the objective of Vishesh’s research will be to identify regions of the genome that cause some sows to be more susceptible to uterine prolapse than others,” Dekkers says. “For this purpose, he will use the extensive data that Topigs Norsvin has collected on these sows, including genotypes at a large number of genetic markers, or locations, across the genome.”

Using knowledge about the pig genome that has been generated over the past decade through whole-genome sequencing and related research, Bhatia will then probe into the genes that are located in these genomic regions to identify potential mechanisms that control susceptibility to uterine prolapse.

A Valuable Partnership

Developing strong partnerships between university Extension and research, coupled to industry stakeholders and collaborators, is essential to ensure that we are addressing the most relevant problems through our research programs, Ross explains.

“By doing this work in connection with industry, it ensures that the communication pipeline for dissemination of the research results to those who can use them is strong, thereby shortening the time from discovery of new knowledge to implementation of new practices in the industry,” Ross says.

Read more about the uterine prolapse study.

Learn more about the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Project here.

Can Genetic Selection Lower Incidence of Uterine Prolapse in Pigs?

Thu, 19 May 2022 20:13:31 GMT

Sow mortality continues to baffle the pork industry. Although no one has uncovered the smoking gun, most would agree that it’s a multifactorial problem.

There are three main factors responsible for this increase in sow mortality across the industry and one of those is uterine prolapse, explains Jenelle Dunkelberger, a geneticist with Topigs Norsvin, who presented on the topic at the American Society of Animal Science Annual Meeting.

“I think it’s an issue a lot of people in academia and industry have wrestled with because the incidence of uterine prolapse seems to be much higher now than in the past, and we’re just not sure what’s driving this increase,” Dunkelberger says. “It’s a really devastating animal welfare issue, as well as economic issue for the sow farm.”

In 2019, the Iowa Pork Industry Center (IPIC) at Iowa State University, with funding from the National Pork Board, conducted an industry-wide survey to help identify potential causative factors of sow pelvic organ prolapse (POP) to move toward developing and disseminating prevention strategies to help reduce POP incidence. Jason Ross, director of IPIC, led the team that surveyed 104 commercial sow farms, representing approximately 385,000 sows across the U.S.

The results showed, at the farm level, the most apparent relationships with increased POP incidence were farms using untreated water sources and farms whose management strategies included late gestation bump feeding, particularly when targeting thin sows. On an individual sow basis, sows with lower body condition or greater swelling and protrusion of the perineal region were more likely to prolapse.

Ross noted in the final report 10 genetic sources were represented across the sow farms in the study, although the study was not balanced for genetic source resulting in some genetic sources being represented on very few sow farms. He said further investigation is warranted as recent reports indicate a lack of heritability of POP risk.

Is There a Genetic Link?

Dunkelberger and her colleagues wanted to better understand the potential role of genetics on susceptibility to uterine prolapse, so they dug further.

“As a genetics company, we have access to a lot of individual sow data. That’s not trivial for a trait like prolapse,” Dunkelberger adds. “Even though it’s a devastating issue, it’s still a low incidence trait. That means it is really challenging to obtain the number of records needed to perform a proper statistical analysis.”

When they began to investigate a potential genetic component for susceptibility to uterine prolapse, they were only able to gather information from one line because the incidence of uterine prolapse in the other line wasn’t high enough to create a data set.

“Noticeable differences between lines or breeds in the incidence rate, or average value for a trait, is usually the first indication that the trait might be influenced by genetics. This is what we observed for uterine prolapse, so we started looking into the data set and applying all the different strategies that we use when performing a genetic analysis. When we did this, we were able to identify a genetic component,” she says.

A Look at the Study

Dunkelberger and others used more than 16,000 different data records for analysis from a commercial multiplication farm that had been recording incidence of uterine prolapse for a number of years already.

“For every one of those data points, we had the full genotype information of the sow and a matching record to indicate why she was removed — either due to uterine prolapse, or due to another reason,” she says.

Dunkelberger developed the study to estimate the heritability of uterine prolapse and to validate estimated breeding values (EBVs) for uterine prolapse in an independent, related population. The 16,000 uterine prolapse records referenced above were used as the training population, and an independent data set of 4,000 records collected from purebred females at one of their nucleus locations was used as the validation population. Phenotypes were recorded at the sow level as removal due to uterine prolapse, or due to another reason.

Heritability estimates were derived from the training dataset by fitting year-season of insemination and parity at removal of the sow as fixed effects and animal as a random effect. Using the same model, validation was performed by regressing corrected offspring performance on sire EBV in the validation dataset.

A Surprising Discovery

Dunkelberger and colleagues discovered that the heritability of uterine prolapse was 22%, which is considered to be moderately heritable.

“For reference, the maximum heritability of a trait is 100%. If a trait is 100% heritable, it means that the trait is completely influenced by an individual’s DNA,” she says. “Meanwhile, 0% means that an individual’s DNA has absolutely no influence on the trait. A heritability of estimate of 22% falls between litter size (a little less heritable) and average daily gain (a little more heritable), to put it in perspective.”

These results also indicate uterine prolapse is mainly due to environmental factors. The higher incidence of uterine prolapse within the U.S. versus other geographic locations confirms the existence of a strong environmental component, Dunkelberger says. Genetic selection can be used to address genetic factors, but identifying and mitigating environmental triggers remains critical to reducing the incidence of uterine prolapse within the U.S. swine industry.

“The point that we have been trying to communicate to customers is that, with a heritability estimate of 22%, we have an opportunity to address uterine prolapse through our breeding program, and we’ve already made steps to do that. However, genetic selection alone is not enough to solve the issue of uterine prolapse,” she says. “If we can attack this problem with genetic solutions and non-genetic solutions, we’re going to make a lot more headway in reducing the overall incidence of this issue.”

The preliminary results from the Topigs Norsvin data are quite convincing there is a partial genetic basis to susceptibility to uterine prolapse, says Jack Dekkers, distinguished professor of animal breeding and genetics at Iowa State University (ISU). Although he says it is possible this genetic basis is specific to the population and environment that these data were collected on.

“Nevertheless, information on the genes that control susceptibility to uterine prolapse in this data set will allow us to conduct more specific and powerful studies in other populations and environments,” Dekkers says. “In addition, knowledge on the biological mechanisms that control susceptibility to uterine prolapse could lead to management interventions that can be applied to other populations and environments to reduce its incidence across the industry.”

Read more from the Synergy on the Sow Farm Series

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

What’s it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

What's it Worth to Reduce Your Herd’s Stillborn Rate?

Mon, 02 May 2022 20:25:14 GMT

Despite advances in genetics, health, nutrition and management, U.S. pig farmers are losing more than 10% of their pigs before they even hit the ground, says Andrew Bents, swine technical veterinarian at Hubbard Feeds.

“We work so hard in the breeding barn to provide a good environment, nutritious feed, optimal boar exposure and a comfortable living space for the sow, and we want to be rewarded with the fruits of that labor as we walk the farrowing rooms by seeing big litters of pigs competing for their mothers’ milk,” Bents says.

In 2020, the average number of pigs born in total per litter was 14.99 pigs per sow, PigChamp reports. However, of those pigs, an average of 1.12 per litter were stillborn and 0.41 per litter were mummified.

Tim Safranksi, University of Missouri Extension state swine specialist, says in order to reduce the number of stillborns, it’s important to fully understand what a stillborn is.

“If a pig fetus dies, it is not aborted as that would complicate pregnancy for the remaining live fetuses. Those piglets remain arrested in development and undergo some decomposition, normally resulting in an olive-colored, drab, piglet-shaped mummy,” Safranski says. “Stillborn piglets look completely normal and fully developed, because they are. How many ‘stillborn’ piglets are found if you take the piglets by C-section at term? None. A stillborn piglet was alive when its mother went into labor but died before being born.”

The modern sow is a complex creature and has excelled in so many areas. Unfortunately, higher litter size and subsequent increased duration of farrowing can contribute to the high stillborn rates evident in the industry today.

Monitor Farrowing Closely

If duration of farrowing is a contributing factor to stillborn rate, and most stillborns come from a subset of the sows, how can that be addressed in the farrowing barn? Safranski says it’s simple – by attended farrowing.

There’s no question that a farrowing monitor is an asset to any pig operation. From udder massage to stimulate endogenous oxytocin release, to sleeving to remove obstructions in the birth canal, to administration of exogenous oxytocin or calcium to support uterine contractions, the farrowing monitor can catch problems before they happen.

Being able to provide timely obstetrical assistance can reduce the number of stillborns by ¼ to ½ piglet per litter or more, Safranski says. If a farm averages one stillborn per litter, it’s not because each litter has one stillborn. He says it’s much more common to see six litters with no stillborns and one old sow with a lot of pigs and seven stillborns. Close monitoring allows employees the opportunity to intervene in piglet delivery.

“This allows a reduction in the number of piglets crushed, the number who suffocate in their placenta after birth, and the proportion not receiving adequate colostrum. Those are all benefits to the farm, but independent of the effect on stillborns,” Safranski adds. “From the 1990s through today, multiple data sets have demonstrated the value of attending farrowing on reducing the number of stillborns.”

Midwives in the barn

Amy Halbrook, barn manager at Tosh Farms’ Crutchfield sow unit, has seven employees who serve as farrowing monitors or midwives. She says she can’t imagine her barn any other way.

“The benefit to having midwives to focus on every sow helps to save babies and catch farrowing complications in the early stage, which in turn can save sows,” Halbrook says. “They are trained to recognize when a sow is in distress, when she is tired, and when she needs a belly rub to help stimulate her to push. They are trained to recognize when a sow is in need of medication. They are also trained to recognize when a piglet needs extra care and to ensure piglets start nursing to get colostrum.”

Her team uses a pig count card to track every birth of every piglet on every sow which gives the midwives the advantage in assisting and picking up on patterns for each sow. Once that pattern is broken, they can quickly intervene, she adds.

Bents encourages recording the time of each farrowing observation to ensure that the delay between pigs isn’t too long. On average, a pig is usually delivered every 15 minutes, so if all the pigs are dry and the placenta hasn’t been expelled yet, it may be worth checking. He also encourages checking for any meconium-stained pigs, as this points to delivery difficulty of that pig.

This interval tends to get longer the later you go into the farrowing process, Safranski adds. As the sow gets more tired, intervention should take place more quickly.

Observing farrowing can help reduce stillborns due to more accurate identification of cause of death, Safranski says. For example, piglets found dead in the morning that were not there at the end of the previous day are often classified as stillborns, while many were born alive but needed that extra support to get oxygen, warmth or colostrum.

What’s it Worth?

Even though research points to the benefit of attended farrowing, labor challenges can stand in the way. However, if you could cut your stillborn rate in half, what is that worth?

First, determine what the cost of providing supervision will be, Safranski says. Obviously, in larger groups of farrowing sows, the farrowing monitor can more quickly cover the cost of their time.

In order to pencil out attending farrowing, he says some economic assumptions need to be made.

What if the number of litters is not predicted to allow the increased number of live piglets to offset costs? Make sure more litters are born in a shorter period of time, he says.

“Induction of farrowing has been used effectively to facilitate supervision of farrowing. That can be done with Prostaglandin-F-2-alpha administration not more than two days prior to natural farrowing. With today’s sows, that means treating sows at 114 to116 days rather than the 112 days often talked about since gestation length is now 115.5 to 118 days in most modern maternal lines,” Safranski says.

He believes this protocol can tighten up a farrowing group by inducing the “tail enders” that might otherwise farrow over another five days or more, as most sows will farrow 24 to 48 hours after treatment.
Another induction protocol is to treat with Prostaglandin-F-2-alpha and then treat with oxytocin 24 hours later. He says this procedure is expected to induce sows to farrow 24 to 32 hours after the initial injection, meaning the vast majority will farrow during the “workday” (or a slightly extended version of a workday). This practice can increase the proportion of live piglets if supervision is provided, but without supervision, may increase stillborn rate.

“Attending farrowing of sows going into labor naturally will result in the greatest piglet survival. Inducing to facilitate supervision is next highest,” Safranski says. “Unattended natural farrowing is next, and the lowest is induced but not attended farrowing (no need to do the latter),” he says.

Monitoring farrowing can make or break your farm, Halbrook says.

“There are so many opportunities lost to save both the babies and the sows. Some farms may choose to not budget for the labor of having a midwife, but if you spend X in labor but gain XX by having a midwife reducing loss, then you’re in the positive at the end of the day,” Halbrook adds. “Another holdback would be the ‘this is how we have always done it’ thinking on a farm. Some farms may not understand the importance of the midwife role, but with education and observation, it can be a game changer.”

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

Sow Management in 2022: 7 Trends to Watch

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 11:00:00 GMT

Whether you are converting an existing herd or populating a barn utilizing electronic sow feeding systems (ESF) with new gilts, it can be a long road to get the herd comfortable with the new system.

It requires patience and consistency. Tanner McCulley, a regional sow manager for TriOak Foods in southeast Iowa, says it typically takes about 28 to 30 weeks to get a group of animals to understand what’s going on. Still, he’s quick to point out that as TriOak Foods has established herds with ESF, and even more importantly, established staff, they wouldn’t have a single person go back to their old feeding systems.

He offers a few tips for producers to consider when training animals to use ESF.

1. Mirror the new environment before you make the move.

Prior to conducting heat checks on gilts, give the gilts at least two weeks, maybe upwards to 30 days, in a mirrored environment like they will experience post preg-check. Put waterers in the same place, use the same ESF station just with ad lib feed and give them plenty of time to explore and observe.

2. Be very proactive.

Starting on day one, get gilts up and start training them to use the feeding station. “If you wait two or three days to look at that action list, you’re going to be having an uphill climb,” he says. “Gilt training has been paramount for us, getting that gilt exposure to the system.”

3. Interact. Interact. Interact.

Within the group pens, get gilts comfortable with people interaction. The hidden bonus of taking these extra steps to acclimate gilts or sows to this new environment is that it seems to alleviate the stress around that first crate introduction when they move a gilt from post-heat check to a breeding area.

Stay tuned for more in the Synergy on the Sow Farm series from Farm Journal’s PORK.

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Thu, 17 Mar 2022 11:00:00 GMT

Producers who are evaluating the use of electronic sow feeding (ESF) systems in gestation barns often question the impact on labor/staff and how a system that utilizes technology may increase either the time needed to manage group housing, or the quality of staff required to manage group housing, or both.

Experts say a training period is not only required for gilts or animals who have never seen electronic feeding stations previously, but also for the teams working with the animals in a group environment.

“Barn staff, generally, are apprehensive at first, but then once they start working with the sows in groups, I think they get a lot of positive feedback from actually working with animals instead of just going around a stall barn,” says Jennifer Brown, a research scientist at Prairie Swine Centre in Canada, during the Gestal Swine Summit virtual webinar.

It’s important to equip your team with confidence so they can thrive through the transition to ESF and improve their animal handling skills.

“You will find a lot a lot of skepticism out there,” Brown says. “I know there’s been some studies where group housing was not successful. However, that was often because the barn staff was not well prepared for the transition and didn’t have a positive attitude around it.”

Build the Right Perspective with Barn Staff

When it comes to new technology and in particular, ESF group housing, if you don’t have your team on the same page aware of the goals and bought in to the system, anything you try to do is going to be a struggle, says webinar host Matthew Rooda of SwineTech.

“Technology is an incredible hurdle. We need a little bit of hand holding to get through that mental barrier,” Brown agrees. “Once we’re on the other side, things started to click, and we realize any apprehensions were maybe larger than in reality.”

Having a clear plan of how the transition is going to occur and what staff responsibilities are is critical. Then, it’s about training, finding those individuals who already have that sensitivity and awareness around animal handling and giving the right tasks to the right people.

“Technology is arriving and is here to stay,” says Telma Tucci, a veterinarian in Italy. She said it’s important to remind employees to not just rely on the new technology, but to teach them how to walk into the pen and interact with the sows and gilts to better understand behavior and to do the best job possible caring for the animals.

Follow the advice of the company you purchase your technology from and don’t try to figure the technology out on your own or do it your own way, cautions Tucci.

“Don’t reinvent the wheel,” says Tanner McCulley, a regional sow manager for TriOak Foods in southeast Iowa. “Listen to your providers or builders, they have done this 100 times. There are some really good thoughts around pen dynamics and pen layout out there.”

Tucci also recommends using storytelling as a way to connect with your team while training them to use new technology like ESF.

Using personal stories of how you’ve interacted or learned about the technology will make a big difference. Brown says, “You have to make it personal for people to really grasp that, ‘Yes, this is a change, but it’s a positive change.’”

Happier Barn, Happier Employees

The labor challenge isn’t going away in the swine industry. Brown is hopeful barn staff will get a more positive feel and enjoy working with animals more by using ESF systems.

“I’m optimistic the barn can be a better environment for staff, with some of these systems. Now, because everyone’s familiar with working with software, it’s a benefit to staff now, to young people working in these barns as compared to the past. Initially, I think it was a bit of a hurdle, because people weren’t that confident working with computers. But now, I think that’s changed,” Brown says.

Valuing barn staff and making sure they get the training needed to run these systems is important. Brown says training should always be focused on developing animal handling and observation of animal behavior skills.

“Encourage people with good animal handling skills to work with the animals,” she says. “And at the same time, look for people who are very familiar with the software and hardware side of things. It’s really a wide set of skills we need in the barn today.”

Watch the webinar here.

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Ease Your Gilts into Electronic Sow Feeding Systems

1. Mirror the new environment before you make the move.

2. Be very proactive.

3. Interact. Interact. Interact.

Stay tuned for more in the Synergy on the Sow Farm series from Farm Journal’s PORK.

Train Your Employees for Electronic Sow Feeding Success

Build the Right Perspective with Barn Staff

Happier Barn, Happier Employees

Stay tuned for more in the Synergy on the Sow Farm series from Farm Journal’s PORK.

Employee Emotional Health:
The Crisis No One Wants to Talk About on the Sow Farm

Here are seven sow management trends to watch.

1. Prioritize production costs.