January’s multi-day cold spell featuring sub-zero temperatures and wind chills as low as -35 degrees Fahrenheit impacted everyone, even pigs inside climate-controlled barns. With a new round of storms coming in this week spreading snow and ice throughout many parts of the country, producers are bracing themselves for freezing temperatures again.
During the latest State of the Pork Industry Report, experts discussed the impact of cold weather and what can be done to help mitigate those challenges.
Farrowing Rooms in Cold Temperatures
When it comes to the sow farm, Adam Annegers, sow production manager at JBS, is quick to point out that not every farm is a new farm.
“A big thing we have to remember, especially through the cold weather, is that any crack in a wall or a door or an inlet – anywhere air can get in – is considered part of the ventilation,” Annegers says. “You can move your inlets and adjust your inlets and set points and probes, but you really just need to step back and look at the whole room and consider if you can seal or cover any cracks or crevices.”
He says you have to set your ventilation for the coldest part of the day, which is typically at night when nobody’s in the barn. That’s why slowing down and not being in such a big hurry is key. Look at each farrowing room each time to ensure everything is perfectly ready to go to help ventilate little pigs.
“As you know, it was 101 degrees when those 3-lb. baby pigs were born. We try to keep the rooms 74 to 76 degrees, but that’s still a 25 to 30 degree drop in temperature just being born. Making sure we have the rooms properly ventilated and prepared for the cold parts of the day takes extra time but is worth the slow down.”
Minimize Stress
“We can’t underestimate how serious cold stress can be, especially at the time of weaning,” says Pipestone veterinarian Cara Haden. “Think about all of the stress we put these pigs through at weaning. We’re taking them off Mom. We’re moving them to a different location. They’re going into a truck for the first time. We’re putting them on solid food for the first time. We’re mixing them with non-littermates in large groups for the first time. That’s a lot of stress at once. I can’t understate how much cold stress can add to that.”
During a recent trip to The Netherlands, Haden shared a story about a veterinarian who talked heating trailers and keeping pigs warm during transport, just to keep that one piece of stress down. That led Haden to many more conversations, placing temperature probes in some trailers and holding more training for truckers to better understand the importance of keeping wean pigs comfortable during transport so they can have a good start in the nursery.
A Warm Welcome
When it comes time to move wean pigs to the nursery, Randy Kuker, director of swine production for The Equity, says nursery barns are typically more buttoned up, but depending on the age, it’s still important to look for cracks and crevices where cold air can get in.
“We put plastic on our end wall fans. When we fill during cold temperatures, we’ll adjust the fill plan based off of how many pigs we’re getting. We might overstock a room for a little while to maintain the heat in there better before we move them to the next room,” Kuker says.
During the -5-degree temperatures last week, some of their farms got in new pigs. That required a little creativity, he adds.
“We could either turn off one of the pit fans outside, so we were running two instead of three on that minimal stage. We also could set it up through certain controllers where we ran the pit fans on a variable timer so they would run for five minutes,” Kuker says. “They’d be off for two or three minutes and then come back on, trying to maintain some heat in the room. We now install clips on our inlets so we can actually shut some of the inlets up, because as facilities age, more air enters the building than it did when it was originally built.”
One way they work to get pigs off to a better start is to make sure the building is warmed up the day before pigs arrive so they get a proper welcome, he adds.
“When those pigs get off that truck, you don’t want them laying on cold concrete waiting for that barn to heat up. You want them to be as comfortable as possible so they can spend their time figuring out where the feed and water are, not huddling in a corner on top of each other.”
Look for the Low-Hanging Fruit
Continuing the transportation discussion, Bradley Eckberg, account executive at MTech Systems, encourages producers to consider transportation losses from the finisher to the packer.
“An average transportation loss is going to be somewhere between a quarter percent to three quarter percent. Let’s say, at a half percent on a 2,400 head finisher, that’s 12 pigs. At $180 a head, that’s $2,160. For a quarter million pigs, 2,400 group sizes, that makes 104 groups sent to market. If each group loses a half percent, or $2,160, that’s almost a quarter million dollars in lost revenue.”
Are those pigs getting stressed because that cold air is hitting them right there in the face? Transportation loss is something people don’t think about on a daily basis.
“But you should think about it,” Eckberg says. “Transportation loss is low-hanging fruit. Consider where yours is today compared to the industry average. How can you get better from a lighting, floor and ventilation standpoint?”
Watch or listen to their entire discussion ranging from PRRS and labor turnover to third-party Prop 12 audits and influenza on YouTube. These experts share their perspective on what’s been happening on farms in Q4 2024 and takeaways for producers to consider in 2025.
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