Why farrow-to finish-business is moving to contract finishing

Investing in precision livestock farming (PLF) technology for more efficient pig finishing has been the main change for the pork enterprise at Shedden farms since Hugh Shedden completed his 2017 Nuffield scholarship.

Mr Shedden, who farms with his father Bob, uncle David, and business partner Ian Pears, made the tumultuous decision to sell the 1,250-sow herd earlier this year and cease the farrow-to-finish business.

Instead, they have opted to go into contract finishing in the new year, taking 7kg weaned pigs to 90kg deadweight.

See also: How Danish sows are averaging 30 piglets a year

The farm has supplied Woodheads and Cranswick in the past but this could also be set to change, with contracts yet undecided.

Ageing buildings and herd health issues (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome and pneumonia) meant the cost of rebuilding and restocking would have taken up capital better invested in other enterprises in the business, explains Mr Shedden.

A pulse-processing business taking beans from across the North has grown since starting in 2013 and the farm’s combinable area has also expanded, with land taken on under farm business tenancy and lease arrangements.

Best practice

“Travelling allowed me to see best practice and it confirmed we would not be able to reach a satisfactory level of sow performance,” admits Mr Shedden, whose topic was how using PLF could improve profit and sustainability in UK pig farming.

“Contract finishing should give us a bit more security on price and protect us from the volatility of the pig markets,” he reflects.

The business is now expanding into a slatted-floor, liquid-feeding system for 7,000 pigs under Red Tractor standards and a further 4,000 pigs will be kept in straw yards under the RSPCA Freedom Food label in an all-in-all-out system.

Nuffield scholarship

Mr Shedden’s tour took him to Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway, the US and around the UK.

Visiting the US and Canada showcased large-scale modern pig farming, while smaller-scale, high welfare farming was to be found in Norway.

Technologies ranged from autogenous vaccines that use bacterial samples from individual farms to produce bespoke vaccinations to remote monitoring and control of barn ventilation and water supply via smartphone apps.

In Belgium Mr Shedden visited Soudtalks, a company developing a device which predicted respiratory illness 10 days earlier than a stockperson by monitoring soundwaves and listening for coughing.

He learned about Danish research that was developing a programme to alert farmers to the risk of aggression after discovering the lowering of pigs’ tails was a warning sign of tail biting.

He also looked at mobile and static pig scanners that use an algorithm to calculate pig weights and divert them to a high or low-energy feed, according to the stage of its development. 

One scanner – from Optisort – could potentially allow farmers to set feeding parameters based on future supermarket carcass-trait demands such as higher belly or ham percentages.

Application

A range of technologies and management practices have already been adopted on his farm, resulting in antibiotics use falling 68% from about 175mg/kg in late 2016 to 55mg/kg in 2018.

This reduction was achieved when the sows were still on farm. Since then, Mr Shedden says antibiotics usage has practically fallen to 0mg/kg due to not needing to medicate the finishing pigs so far.

This has been achieved in part by working with Garth pig practice and German vaccine manufacturer Anicon Labor, a firm visited by Mr Shedden on his Nuffield.

An autogenous vaccine was produced for the specific strain of Streptococcus suis at Shipton Grange, which was then used on the weaners to give the animal antibodies against the pathogen.

“It took a bit of trial and error and the first vaccine didn’t work, but at the second attempt we now have the confidence not to use antibiotics at the first sign of trouble and trust the vaccine will do its job,” explains Mr Shedden.

Attention was also put on disinfection and probiotics, with a housing cleaner bought from Carmarthenshire-based company Pruex.

“The theory is good bacteria swamps out the bad, creating a good environment.

“It’s still early days but we are going to trial it again with the next batch of finishers,” explains Mr Shedden.

One example of PLF technology Shedden Farms has invested in is Barn Report Pro, which monitors fan speed and temperature remotely from a smartphone.

By working on an alarm system, the programme – made by UK company Farmex – alerts the team when something goes wrong, such as earlier this summer during the heatwave.

“Monitoring temperature allowed us to avoid a serious performance loss by opening up the ventilation system when the outside temperature got above 30C,” he explains.

“I can be working in a field and still know what conditions are like in the sheds.”

Cough monitors have also been installed on trial to see if they can pre-empt respiratory problems before staff can.

This system works by installing microphones in finishing sheds and automatically analysing the sounds made by the pigs.

Sounds are recorded on graphs. Any spike in the graph indicates a rise in respiratory stress, explains Mr Shedden.

If any treatment is then required, the graph can be cross-referenced to see if management changes or medication was successful.