Key Factors
(Continued from Page 32)
Number of Pigs Per Pen
Keep this at 25 pigs or less. When group sizes
exceed 25, the social stability breaks down, resulting
in more unrest among the pigs.
Moving and Loading Hogs
As a producer, you represent a critical link be
tween the farm and the dinner table. Clearly, genet
ics plays an important role in lean content and pork
quality. But it’s just as clear that pork quality can
suffer when pigs are not loaded carefully.
Design your facilities so that pigs move with a
minimum of pushing and persuasion. Sharp cor
ners, narrow alleys, and loading chutes through
which pigs can see out should not be part of your
system.
The more shouting, slapping, and shocking that
is required to move the pigs from the pen to the
truck the greater the incidence of pale, soft, and ex
udative (PSE) pork.
Feeder Adjustment
Too many producers believe that feeder adjust
ments is a once-a-month routine. Removing any
fouled feed and adjusting the feeders should be a
daily process.
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Quality
Barrows grow faster and eat more than gilts, but
gilts have more muscle and are leaner. So it’s logical
that gilts respond to higher dietary lysine. The eco
nomic incentive to split sex feeding is to optimize
carcass value in the gilt and to minimize feed cost
for the barrows.
Formulation for Lean Gain
Many producers assume that the lysine concen
tration in their grow-finish diet matches the needs
of the pig. Actually, making this decision requires
considerable effort and some intelligent assump
tions. For example, to determine the optimum
lysine concentration, the following information is
needed: average starting weight, average days on
feed, average carcass weight, and loin eye area and
backfat (or comparable optical probe measure
ments).
From these values, we can calculate lean gain per
day and then estimate the daily lysine requirements.
The average feed intake must be known to calculate
the appropriate lysine percentage for the diet. Be
cause this process is a bit complicated, most produc
ers will not go to the effort.
Estimating the most economical lysine concen
tration is even more difficult because it requires
knowing how pigs respond to varying lysine levels,
(Turn to Page 35)
• Pigs Will Be Sorted, Ready For Loading
• You Can't Afford To Build Without It
- Can Be Installed in Existing Buildings
Split Sex Feeding
[feed |