July 28, 1997

Pork producers starting to look at concept of wean-to-finish production

By ROD SMITH
Feedstuffs Staff Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, IND. - new concept in pork production shows that the industry is consolidating not only operations themselves but production strategies into decimal-point efficiency, according to Farmweld president Frank Brummer.

Called "wean- to-fini sh, " the concept seeks to eliminate costly "bottlenecks" in pig transportation and add important values in growth and lean, he said during an interview at the World Pork Expo here. The concept can return several additional dollars per head and is "growing in popularity," he said.

Brummer and Dr. Joe Connor, a veterinarian whose practice is based in Carthage, Ill., explained the concept during an interview at Farmweld's booth where the company introduced prototype wean-to-finish feeding and other rearing equipment. Farmweld, in Teutopolis, Ill., is a manufacturer of equipment for livestock production.

The concept is adaptable to existing hog buildings or may be designed into new buildings, Connor said, adding that while a good handle on the number of producers who are going to wean-to-finish is not available, based on phone calls to his practice, "a lot of systems are looking at this very seriously."

Comparison of performance in traditional and wean-to-finish pork production systems.
	Head	Average weaned weight*	Average market weight*	Feed conversion	Days to market	Daily gain
Traditional nursery and finishing	NA	8-9	259	2.71	173.5	1.435
Wean-to-finish	28,934	9.1	252.7	2.54	167	1.51
*pounds
Source: Dr. Joe Connor, Carthage Veterinary Clinic, Carthage, Ill.

The interest is coming from all producers, small, medium and large, added Dr. Tim Loula, a veterinarian whose practice is based in St. Peter, Minn., who is assisting producers wanting to implement the concept. "There are no size restrictions," he emphasized in material provided by Farmweld.

The first look originated at Oakville Feed & Grain in Oakville, Iowa, about four years ago, Connor said, recalling that Oakville, a contract pork producer, was exploring options "to alter pig flow" and found if it eliminated nurseries and moved baby pigs straight from the farrowing facilities to the finishing barns, it could decrease multiple relocation of pigs and reduce subsequent stress and other productivity problems related to that. Furthermore, he said, the company realized additional advantages from decreased labor costs to improved conversions, gains, days to market and percent lean.

Generally, pigs are first relocated to a nursery, grown to feeder wei ght and then to a finishing barn, but in weanto-finish, pigs are relocated just once to a combined growing, and finishing barn. Connor and Loula suggested wean-to-finish offers several significant advantages, including reduced relocation and transportation, which the two called "a common bottleneck" in modern, multi-site production. Hauling pigs from site to site is an inefficient use of personnel and trucking logistics and is quite stressful to the pigs, causing periods that are counter-productive, contributing to disease and even growth setbacks, they said.

An example of the latter occurs at the end of the nursery period when young pigs have reached the maximum sizes and weights that the nursery can accommodate and are crowded, with inadequate access to feeders and waterers, Connor and Loula said. This sacrifices growth and health as well as lean meat production, losses that are avoidable in larger, more accommodating wean-to-finish facilities, they argued.

Additionally, each relocation, from farrowing houses to nurseries to finishers, exposes pigs to disease and socialization setbacks, they said.

Indeed, Connor's early trials demonstrate the greater efficiencies and productivity of the more streamlined system (Table). Based on those trials, he estimated savings totaling 50 cents per pig in eliminating relocation to the finishing house, 30 cents in eliminating socialization to the new environment in the finishing house and 70 cents in reducing the number of days to market, and he put the value of an 0.1-0.2 improvement in feed conversion at 84 cents to $1.68.

Moreover, he said there is an advantage in lean production that's not yet fully understood but could be worth several dollars. He said trials are being conducted at Kansas State University to assess lean benefits.

Brummer and Connor acknowledged that there is an additional cost to build or remodel existing facilities into weanto-finish houses - as much as $3-10 per pig space to build new units. They also agreed that there is an additional cost for energy to heat the building during the "nursery" period and that there is less efficient utilization of space during the nursery period in the bigger wean-to-finish unit than in the traditional nursery. However, Connor said the data supporting wean-to-pig is sufficient to make advocates "comfortable" in stating that the advantages more than offset those disadvantages. Going to wean-to-finish may well be "the major change" in pig flow this year, he said.

The Farmweld prototype equipment (photograph) includes a feeder with a low lip, which lets both baby and older pigs access the feeder, and solid dividers, which keep baby pigs from getting trapped in the troughs.

The waterers are designed with features that entice baby pigs to the waterer and encourage them to drink rather than play in the water, Brummer said.

© 1997 Feedstuffs. Reprinted with permission from Vol. 69, No. 31, July 28, 1997
 

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