M-Lancastcr Fanning, Saturday. June 8, 1991
ALL-IN, ALL-OUT
Fifteen years ago, an all-in, all
out farrowing house was a univer
sally accepted creature in the hog
business. The added cost of mak
ing separate rooms was more than
offset by a reduction in respiratory
and diarrhea diseases. Soon to fol
low was the concept of all-in, all
out nurseries.
Now there is a lot of momentum
to handling pigs from birth to
market as a single group, which
means the grow-fmish stage would
also be managed in an all-in, all
out fashion.
The advantages may seem
pretty obvious, and so may the
drawbacks. What isn’t so clear is
how to estimate a pay-back, espe
cially for the small producer.
Change your facilities to all-in,
all-out? It depends on your current
level of performance, says a veter
inarian. It depends on the costs of
remodeling says, an engineer. It
depends on how long you’re com
mitted to the hog business, says a
producer.
Let’s take a brief look at the
issue, and in the end you’ll hope
fully be a little better equipped to
figure whether your farm is suited
for continuous flow or groups.
The Advantages
When you’re able to break the
disease cycle and reduce the trans
mission of bacteria and viruses
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by
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Penn State Extension Swine Specialist
from older pigs to younger pigs, a
lot of nice things happen.
E. coli has trouble getting a
foothold. Pasteurella can’t survive.
Even parasites have a hard time
hanging on. Emptying a room, fol
lowed by washing and disinfect
ing, will do all of these things. The
resultant increase in performance
and reduction in death loss is the
major incentive for handling hogs
as a group.
There are some other, more
subtle advantages to all-in, all-out.
Facility cleanup, especially in the
farrowing house and nursery, is
easier since you don’t have to wor
ry about chilling other pigs in the
room. Buildings are cleaned more
often, making for a pleasant work
environment. And since the entire
farm revolves around a schedule,
the chores are more apt to get done
on lime.
The Drawbacks
Facilities. If increased perfor
mance and disease control arc the
chief incentives for all-in, all-out,
then the major obstacle has to be
the cost of facilities.
Dividing a room means new
walls and doors, tight enough to
restrict air flow from one group of
pigs to another. It also means sepa
rate ventilation systems. Each
room will require at least two fans
and a new inlet.
Ideally, manure gutters should
be separate, although the engineers
tell us that as long as pigs don’t
come in direct contact with manure
from another group of pigs, we can
get by. Labor. Someone has to
clean all those pens. Currently a lot
of producers pressure wash and
disinfect their finishing facilities
only once every few years. Many
others never clean them at all.
In an all-in, all-out system, the
grower-finisher bam will need to
be cleaned at least 3 times a year.
Management. It’s no cinch
maintaining a group system. If, for
example, you’re set up to farrow
10 sows every two weeks, you’ll
hopefully be breeding 12-14 sows
one week out of every two.
Breeding too many sows will
cause you grief, and not enough
sows will cost you money. If you
have a sow come in heat in the
“off-week” and you decide to
breed her anyway, then she’ll far
row in a “group” all by herself.
This problem presents a real
dilemma for the moderate-sized
producer who is trying to batch
farrow his sows. A good number of
sows will come into heat when
they’re not supposed to. Do you
sell them, or hope they’ll be in
“sync” with the next group? Either
A'*'
R
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way, it’s going to cost you some
money.
Traffic Patterns. Pig traffic and
people traffic should be one-way
as much as possible. For example,
sows leaving the farrowing house
should be able to walk (or ride) to
the breeding bam without going
through any farrowing, nursery or
finishing rooms. Growing pig
movement should be in a constant
direction of youngest to oldest
until they reach market weight.
Ideally, people working in the
facility should walk from the
rooms holding the youngest pigs to
those housing the oldest pigs. Foot
baths should separate each divi
sion. If this traffic routine isn’t
practical, do the best you can, rea
lizing pigs will spread disease
more readily than people.
The Economics
Farrowing. I wasn’t able to find
any controlled studies comparing
group farrowing with a continuous
system. But I would speculate that
sows in an all-in, all-out farrowing
house would produce at least. 10 to
.25 more pigs per litter than a simi
lar group in a continuous flow
facility.
Agrotec
The profit associated with an
extra pig per litter is an incredible
$35 to $5O, since each extra pig
goes to market for little more than
the cost of feed. If we accept the
.25 pig per litter advantage, the
returns would be $8.75 to $12.50
per litter.
Nursery. Preliminary data from
Michigan State University shows
that in a 35-day time period, pigs
handled all-in, all-out gain 15 per
cent faster and 6 percent more effi
ciently than pigs in a continuous
flow nursery.
Under their conditions, this fig
ur' ut to four extra pounds of pig
.for only an extra four pounds of
feed. If you sold the pig when he
left the nursery, the economic
advantage would be at least $2.00,
maybe $3.00. But in a farrow-to
finish operation, the heavier pigs
leaving the nursery would have to
pay their dividends in the grower
finisher phase, which is much
harder to calculate.
Finishing. Purdue seems to have
the most objective information,
with all-in, all-out hogs showing a
10- or 11-day reduction in time to
market as well as a reduction in
(Turn to Pag* C 5)
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