You've undoubtedly done your best to trim expenses from the hog operation over the past 12 months, but the New Year presents a fresh opportunity to take another look.
"Basics are the key, and it seems like we are never as good as we probably can be on the basics," says Jeff Kayser, production manager, Suidae Health and Production (SHP).
Kayser and Jason Kelly, DVM , also with SHP, based in Algona, IA, partnered to develop 10 detailed ideas for lowering your farm's operational costs and improving your bottom line.
"These items are in no particular order of importance," says Kelly. Some might slightly increase production costs, but in the end "will improve returns and, therefore, improve profitability or reduce financial losses."
Intensify farm biosecurity and keep disease out from the sow farm to the finishing barns
This has been accomplished on a number of clients' farms, says Kelly. "We work hard every day to produce healthy pigs, and producing PRRS-negative pigs is one of our big goals," he says. "If we are successful at making a PRRS-negative pig, we want to make sure we keep that pig negative through the nursery and grow-finish period because that is where most of the production cost is."
SHP research with clients shows the value of keeping a herd negative for PRRS (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome). A producer five years ago thought all of his PRRS-negative weaned pigs were staying negative through finishing. Mortality and gains were acceptable, but in screening for the virus, it was discovered that a small percentage of the pigs were becoming infected during the grow-finish period. The non-clinical cost of PRRS was $4.42/head.
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