New data by livestock management company Nedap show that gilts that gain decent amounts of weight during gestation, will eventually produce a litter with more piglets born alive.
Breeding gilts putting on the most weight during gestation will produce more liveborn piglets than poorly growing gilts. That was the outcome of an analysis of management system Porcitec, carried out by Nedap. The data on which this outcome was based were gathered on a pig farm with 3,000 sows in Spain. That pig farm has a weighing unit for gestating gilts and sows and also has an automatic feeding system in the farrowing house.
Breeding gilts putting on the most weight during gestation will produce more liveborn piglets than poorly growing gilts. That was the outcome of an analysis of management system Porcitec, carried out by Nedap. The data on which this outcome was based were gathered on a pig farm with 3,000 sows in Spain. That pig farm has a weighing unit for gestating gilts and sows and also has an automatic feeding system in the farrowing house.
Good gilt management
Arno van Brandenburg, business development manager at Nedap, said that finetuning at animal level could be the next step in data use from individual feeding equipment and weighing units.
He said, “By looking more closely how a gilt or sow grew during the previous round of gestation, it is possible to much better monitor the current gestation, to achieve an optimum performance. In case there are gilts or sows that have been inseminated at a lower weight level but do grow well during gestation and are on track for a nice litter of piglets, there is the challenge: to guide these animals even better during gestation.”
PigProgress | Anne-Marie van der Linde | October 18,
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