By Paul Faris, on behalf of MetaFarms

The dry erase whiteboard used to share and focus team members on key production metrics has been a fixture in most sow farm offices for years. It has been a great tool to track the basic weekly numbers that are important for farm performance and profitability, such as breeding target, conception rate, farrow rate, total born, stillborns, pigs weaned/sow and total pigs weaned.

While tracking performance and results is important, taking the next step to benchmark those results against industry and peer group performance is key to setting competitive farm goals and identifying areas of opportunity.

It is common for farms to have regularly scheduled veterinary visits and diagnostic monitoring to manage herd health. A similar approach to evaluating farm data, identifying areas that need deeper analysis and narrowing the farm focus to the action areas that will drive maximum improvement can be of great value. The farm manager role often has them managing very immediate daily challenges similar to chopping through the jungle with a machete. These regular records deeper dives can be like a drone flight directing which way they are chopping.

A case study might start with the broad area of litters/sow/year that is benchmarking below expectations. Analyzing the pieces of this metric, starting with conception rates and comparing them to farrow rates to measure initial results, and then digging into post preg-check fallout might be a first step. Deeper analysis would include reports on results by parity, by day of week bred, by day post-weaning bred and possibly individual breeding technician performance. With this you may find that a high percentage of sows are bred on day 3 post weaning with a considerably lower conception rate than day 4 and 5 post wean breeds and are only receiving two inseminations. This would narrow the focus to spending heat check time with the team evaluating if they are overly aggressive in determining first standing heat or if taking the approach of delaying first inseminations or adding a third mating if still standing strong might yield the desired improvement in outcomes.

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As more real time data entry and workflow programs are implemented on farms, working to increase the engagement with and understanding of data with all team members can be a source of motivation and improved productivity. An example continuing with the litters/sow/year theme would be taking time to explain and walk through the effects of late gestation opens sows (NIP’s) on the overall litters/sow/year and ultimately the pigs/sow/year. With the continuing movement to pen gestation the effect of gestation fallout has been amplified. Most farm managers and breeding leads that see a 5% reduction in conception rates in any given week would immediately start asking the questions of what happened: semen handling or quality, different breed technicians, etc. Communicating to the team how just one sow found not in pig at 115 days per 100 sows bred would have the same effect on litters/sow/year when measuring wasted sow days as five return sows per 100 sows bred that are found and re-bred or culled by 23 days.

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Benchmarking, scheduling regular deep dives into the production records and engaging and educating production team members will help keep the farm focused on setting competitive goals and on improving the areas of greatest impact to achieving those goals.